Cloudy, With a Chance
by levi2000a1
Summary: What happens when misunderstandings and misconceptions are piled on top of one another and how do they affect the people you hold most dear? Kim must travel down a path that she helped create and heal not only her relationship with her family, but their relationship with each other. My first journey into a heavy drama story. Drama/Hurt/Family
1. Chapter 1

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.  
The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

Personal Disclaimer:

This takes place about six years after "Graduation" and it will not be a happy story like I normally write. It's more of a plot bunny that has been nibbling at my toes till it finally drew blood.

It is not a part of my normal Kimverse and falls more into a "What if" world and it is not a one-shot. I do plan on coming back to it and telling the entire tale after I finish up a few other stories. This introduction is to sort of to test the water and see if there would be an interest in it.

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Kim was driving her car to a destination that she both longed for with all her heart and feared to the very bottom of her soul.

It was cloudy that day, dismal in fact. All the threats of rain without anything actually happening. Much the same way her life had been going since the argument. That had been over a year ago.

Words had been spoken that should never have been and they were never meant. Not then or ever. Just said in the heat of anger. It was just that they were so hard to take back, especially if the person you needed to take them back from, told you to leave and that you weren't welcome there anymore.

She had hoped that time apart would help heal the wounds, letting some of the poison of her words seep out and lessen some of the sting, so that she could try and heal them later. She hadn't counted on them being so deep and that the poison festered in them, which resulted in a total amputation, or total isolation.

She had read her own Global Justice psyche evaluation a long time ago and at laughed at it then. It might explain some of what happened that day. "A brilliant tactical mind with little tolerance for failure. One who is highly driven. Well traveled, but is a highly motivated loner with a _desire_ for secrecy. A need to control her environment and the people in it." It was funny then because she was in a relationship with Ron at the time and her world was looking bright. She had not been expecting this.

Even though six months of staying away did nothing, she thought that her wedding might help the healing. She had never been more wrong. Her good friends that had moved out of town came back that day, but when they found out what had happened with her, well, she and her husband could have saved a lot of money on the wedding reception. Hardly anybody came and those that did didn't stay any longer than to wish the bride and groom well. It was so bad that when they had their first dance together as man and wife, it was only them and the band left in the hall. Well, them and his parents and half way through the dance, she broke down in tears. If it hadn't been for his love and support for her, she might have had a full emotional collapse.

Of all the people that were at the actual wedding, she only really noticed who wasn't. The invitation had been sent, along with a handwritten letter asking for an RSVP and pleading for a chance at a possible reconciliation. She never received a phone call or any kind of reply back. The continued silence and distance between them just grew more than ever.

Her husband had quietly wanted her to resolve this part of her life. Quietly, because he knew that he had been a big part of the flashpoint that started the big blowup. Neither of them expected to be discovered making love that day and he didn't react well to what was said afterwords. He also saw how it was slowly eating her up from the inside like a cancer.

He had to go out of town for a few days on business and he suggested that this would be a good time to do what she could to make amends. Once she got things straightened out for her, he would try and do the same. He thought she should try first, on her own, not because he was afraid of dealing with it or that he didn't want be there for her, but because he thought it would be like trying to put out a fire using gasoline if he were there. She had to agree with him because even though she loved him with all of her heart, his presence would have only complicated things to the extreme.

As she pulled up to the house, it too looked sad. That was the best way she could describe it. The same overcast gloom she felt in her life, she saw in the house. It looked like it just needed _something_ to look alive again. The way it use to be, back like when she was a kid. Back then all she dreamed about was growing up so she could make a real difference in the world. Now, all she dreamed about was being a kid again so she could have her world back the way it was.

As she walked from her car to the door, every step got harder to take; her own fears and nerves making her feet feel like she was shackled, with with the weight of her own words from that day being added as she got closer. "Come on Kim." she said to herself as she urged herself onward. "Your last name may not be "Possible" anymore, but you can do this. You need to do this. You ___have _to do this."

Knowing that she couldn't just walk in and announce herself the way she had so very many times in the past, she stopped at the front door and after taking a deep breath to try and calm herself and get her heartbeat and emotions back under some control, she rang the doorbell and waited.

When the door partially opened, she saw a pair of eyes that she had trusted so many times in the past for as long as she could remember. At first she saw startled recognition in them and for the briefest instant, maybe a little joy, but that disappeared quickly as a tired and annoyed look took its place. They both stood there in silence looking at each other.

After what seemed like forever, but was really only about half a minute, the person said, "Mind if I ask what you want? I seem to remember you saying that you never wanted to see me or anyone from this house again."

Kim inwardly flinched after hearing her own words repeated back to her. "This isn't how I'd really hoped this would begin." said Kim softly. "Most people like to start with a greeting, like "Hello," but to answer your question I came here to talk and maybe try to clear the air. I don't expect a lot, I don't know if I deserve anything. But I would just like a chance to try to fix things between us. Please? I really do miss you."

After a full minute of silence went by, she heard a sigh and as the door opened wide she also heard, "Hello Kimberly." in a neutral tone of voice. "Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?"

Kim couldn't help but have a small glimmer of hope flash in her heart as she said, "Hello Mother. Yes, I'd like that very much."

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TBC

As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, PM me or put it in a review.  
Reviews let me know if you like it or not.


	2. Chapter 2

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.  
The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

I'd like to thank temporaryinsanity91 for helping me with this story. She has a better eye than I do for painting the imagery with words.

And I would like to thank CajunBear73 for a big assist on the previous chapter which I forgot to mention.

I'd also like to thank ajw1970, CajunBear73, MF71, Clutch28, BlueLion and Greenjolt for taking the time to leave a review. The first chapter of a new story always scares me and it help tremendously when I see that people think it's worth reading.

This takes place about six years after "Graduation."

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20 Years Previously

The little girl came out to meet her parents after her second week of Pre K. She had a sad pout on her face as she walked up to  
them.

"What's wrong Kimmie?" asked her mother.

"Ronnie and I had a fight. He was talking to another girl named Bonnie and I got mad at him." the little girl said. "I'm not mad now, but I  
don't know how to tell him I'm sorry."

"What do you mean?" asked her father.

"I want to tell him I'm sorry about the mean things I said to him and I didn't mean them, but I don't know what to say to him to let him  
know I want to say I'm sorry, before I say I'm sorry."

Looking at his pregnant wife, the father winked and smiled at her before he squatted down so he could be on his daughter's level, so he could  
look her in the eyes. "Well, I don't know much about your little friend Ronnie, but do you want to know how most people would start to tell someone they're sorry?"

"Oh yes, please." said the little girl as her face brightened up.

Her father looked at her with a warm smile and said, "Most people like to start with a greeting, like "Hello."

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Just Previously

The person said, "Mind if I ask what you want? I seem to remember you saying that you never wanted to see me or anyone from this house again."

Kim inwardly flinched after hearing her own words repeated back to her. "This isn't how I'd really hoped this would begin." said Kim softly. "Most people like to start with a greeting, like "Hello," but to answer your question I came here to talk and maybe try to clear the air. I don't expect a lot, I don't know if I deserve anything. But I would just like a chance to try to fix things between us. Please? I really do miss you."

After a full minute of silence went by, she heard a sigh and as the door opened wide she also heard, "Hello Kim." in a neutral tone of voice. "Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?"

Kim couldn't help but have a small glimmer of hope flash in her heart as she said, "Hello Mother. Yes, I'd like that very much."

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That small glimmer of hope that she'd felt was rapidly dying as she followed her mother into the kitchen. No more words were said during that short trip as Ann only looked straight ahead, almost ignoring the fact that her daughter, whom she hadn't seen or spoken to in over a year was right behind her. The house felt cold to her even though she was sweating, like she no longer belonged there. Even though everything was where she remembered it, it felt like she was in some stranger's home filled with unknown things in it that didn't want her there.

Wait. There was something out of place. There was a big black plastic trash bag sitting on the dining room table and it held a bunch of flat objects in it judging from the bulges that were stretching it. Thin books? She would have found out what they were, but she didn't want to let her mother think she was snooping. As it turned out, as she entered the short hallway, just before entering the kitchen, she realized what they were in the bag. Photographs. Family photographs that had been hanging on the walls. A few were still in place, but only the ones that had just the twins in them. Any with her and Ron were gone.

Still without saying anything or turning to face her, Ann pointed to a kitchen chair for Kim to sit in as she pulled a coffee cup out of the drainer along with a couple of spoons and got one cup out of the cabinet and then placed them on the kitchen table. As Kim sat down, she noticed that there was only one spot on the table that was totally free of old newspapers that had never been read and bills. Although clean, the room smelled like someone hadn't taken the trash out for a while. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't blame that on the twins.

Her brothers had been doing research on the Lowardian technology left over from that aborted world conquest attempt six years ago. Wade had been helping them and had several computer programs to identify and translate both their written language and computer language. They had gotten into some top secret, ultra high level security stuff and the entire team had been sequestered to prevent their findings from leaking out and to finish the study. Both the Tweebs and Wade knew going in that it could be two years before they could return to their normal lives, whatever that was for them, but it would be two years of total communications blackout and isolation so far as their outside world was concerned. Kim could appreciate what that might feel like for them, only theirs had a purpose with a goal in mind. Her's had no goal that she could see except as a punishment, but now that she was back in her old home where it all started, she wasn't sure who was being punished.

Her mother got a tea kettle off the stove, finished filling it with some more water and set it back on the stove to heat which caused Kim to glance at the coffee maker. She saw that the carafe was broken and laid in shattered pieces on its heating pad. For some reason she had the feeling that it had been that way for a long while, even though she didn't remember it happening during their fight. Her attention was drawn back to the table with the sound of Ann setting a jar of instant coffee down between Kim's cup and her own.

Instant coffee. Generic instant coffee at that. Her entire family had always been coffee snobs liking their own specially blended, freshly brewed coffee and thought that instant was just some grotesque thing that you would drink as a last ditch resort, like if the earth were struck by a comet and it was the end of the world. Yet, from the small amount left in the large sized jar, her mother had been drinking it for a while.

Kim tried to think of something to say while they waited for the water to get hot for the coffee, Maybe tell her mother how Ron was out of town on business but sends his love, tell her how much they both missed them when they didn't show up at their wedding, or how much he regretted his part in the blow up, but one phrase kept her from saying any of those things. **"_Like trying to put out a fire with gasoline._"** That was something neither she nor Ron wanted to happen here, ever again.

As the silence dragged on while they waited for the whistle of the teapot, Kim quietly tried to start a conversation by asking, "So, how have you been mom?"

Her mother turned to face her now for the first time since she entered the house. Glancing up, Kim could now see the worry lines etched across her brow and how gaunt her mother looked now. She'd seen those same lines, that same look before, only not as bad before. She saw them whenever she looked into Ron's face or whenever she looked in the mirror. If it hadn't been for Ron to help her hold herself together, her face might have looked as bad. As she started to silently curse her father for allowing her mother to get this bad, she stopped herself as she realized that she had been as much a part if not more, of painting those lines on their faces as anyone. She hadn't seen her father yet to judge how he looked.

It took about ten seconds for Ann to answer. It looked like she wanted to say one thing but changed her mind and settled for, "About as good as can be expected, all things considered." She turned back to the stove and back to ignoring Kim.

"How are things at the hospital?" Kim hesitantly asked hoping to get a conversation going so they could try and get used to talking to each other again.

After taking a deep breath that came out as a sigh, Ann said, "I've taken some personal time off, gone on sabbatical. A colleague strongly suggested it." She sounded slightly annoyed when she answered.

Before she could ask for any further details, the teapot started it a low drone that quickly built up to a full whistle. Ann turned the stove off and got the teapot. She then filled Kim's cup up with the hot water but only filled her own up half way. After setting the pot back on the stove Ann sat down, opened the instant coffee jar and put one spoon full of the powdered coffee in her cup. As Kim was doing the same, Ann reached down on the bench beside her to a place that Kim couldn't see from where she sat, and brought up an almost empty bottle of gin. Opening it, she finished filling her coffee cup with what was in it.

Kim was now staring at her mother, because she had never seen her drink anything other than wine during dinner or maybe a drink after a full meal, but never during this time of day or on an empty stomach.

Without looking up as she stirred the cup's contents, Ann said, "It s called English Coffee, a mixture of Gin and coffee. I'm out of the rest of the ingredients, but I can make do. And before you start judging me Kimberly, the medicinal use of alcohol was found mentioned in Sumerian and Egyptian texts dating from about 2100 BC. Even the Hebrew Bible recommends giving alcoholic drinks to those who were dying or depressed, so that they can forget their misery."

More than a little bit shocked at her mother's statement, Kim hesitantly said, "But mother, you're not dying or..."

"We're all dying Kim, to one degree or another, just at different rates." interrupted Ann. She then continued as if she were lecturing to a group of first year medical interns. "Even though alcohol is actually a depressant that slows down your reflexes and lowers your inhibitions, it does slow the brain down so it gets to the point it doesn't realize that there is pain. There was more alcohol used by surgeons during the American Civil War for that purpose than bullets used by soldiers of both sides."

"Okay." thought Kim. She wanted to give a soft, easy serve into her mother's court so they could talk but Ann took that serve and smashed it back into Kim's face._ "This is not a game to try and determine a winner or loser. We are both losers in this and we've both lost too much. We need to end it."_ thought Kim.

"Mom." Kim started slowly and softly as her mother then took a drink of her "Coffee." "I am so...so very sorry about what happened that day. Words were said and threats were made that I, we, never thought..."

"Do you want to know what**_ I_** remember from that day Kim?" Ann asked without any expression on her face or in her voice, just before she took a bigger drink from her cup. Her face was almost stoic as she waited for Kim to reply.

Swallowing what she was going to try and say, Kim said, "Alright mother. What do you remember?"

Ann had been the last of the four that entered into the argument that say. She was also the one that called a halt to it before it was over, or before someone died.

Finishing her drink, Ann sat the now empty cup down on the table and looked at her daughter. "I remember your father sitting out on the back porch as the sun went down trying to figure out what happened earlier. He wouldn't tell me much other than something had happened when he stopped by the house you were renting to drop off some paperwork to you, something you had asked him to do after he got off work. I remember you and Ron showing up, which surprised me a little bit since James said something about Ron having ordered him to never go to your house again and James getting mad and telling him he would but he expected the same from him. I remember Ron going out on the porch to talk and you waiting inside by the door. Then I remember words being spoken. Words that got louder and angrier till they started yelling. I remember you rushing out and your voice joined in. Then I remember you yelling for me to come out quickly. The next thing I remember was seeing Ron standing there with that stupid sword of his and I remember your father's blood."

Ann stopped and refilled her cup with straight gin this time not bothering with any pretense of diluting it with coffee and water and took a big gulp of it before continuing on. "The blood that came from a cut that ran from his thyroid cartilage (adam's apple) to just short of where his jugular vein was."

She finished emptying the cup before saying, "That's what I remember most from that day. Seeing your father's blood."

TBC

As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, PM me or put it in a review.  
Reviews let me know if you like it or not.


	3. Chapter 3

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.  
The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

Thank you's go out to CajunBear73, Greenjolt, Clutch28, MF71, ajw1970, Beckman, Imyoshi, Jimmy1201, pcfreak30 for taking the time to not only read the chapter but to leave a review.

A special thank to temporaryinsanity91 for not only leaving a review but helping to shape and polish this chapter.

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Previously

I remember you rushing out and your voice joined in. Then I remember you yelling for me to come out quickly. The next thing I remember was seeing Ron standing there with that stupid sword of his and I remember your father's blood."

Ann stopped and refilled her cup with straight gin this time not bothering with any pretense of diluting it with coffee and water and took a big gulp of it before continuing on. "The blood that came from a cut that ran from his thyroid cartilage (Adam s apple) to just short of where his jugular vein was."  
She finished emptying the cup before saying, "That's what I remember most from that day. Seeing your father's blood."

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Kim slowly counted to ten in her head as Ron had suggested. She refused to allow herself to repeat the same kind of mistakes that she'd made over a year ago. Instead of jumping in to defend Ron's actions and mistakes, she waited to give herself time to let those emotions pass and let her mother's built up emotional pressure subside a little before she quietly said, "Mother, you know that was a total accident. If Dad hadn't said what he said and then he..."

"No." yelled her mother as she put the cup down on the table top with enough force to break the handle off. "No matter what your father said, Ron had a sword, not a gun. It didn't go off because he didn't know that it was loaded while he was cleaning it. That could be called an accident a really stupid accident involving someone too irresponsible to own a gun in the first place, and maybe by someone who had no bad intentions. But don't you dare tell me that Ron pulling a sword on your father was an accident." Anne spat the last word out before she stopped long enough to look at the now broken cup in her hand and seeing the cup seemed to calm her down a lot. With regret she said, "Damn it. That was the last cup from that set too." Now her eyes started watering over the broken piece of china.

With her mother preoccupied with the broken cup, Kim glanced up at the open cabinet where it had been kept. The family set of china had been a gift from her parent's wedding and they always replaced anything that ever got broken from it immediately, several plates and saucers, but none of the cups had ever been broken before. Ann used to tell Kim, "It's like keeping your family together. You want to keep things whole instead of having things missing." The shelf where the 12 cups had been kept, or at least there had been 11 cups there a year ago, was now empty.

Kim broke one that dreadful day when Ann, after she'd managed to get the bleeding stopped, ordered to Ron to leave and not come back, just like James had demanded Ron not to come to the house earlier when Ron had told James not to come back to Kim's house ever again.

Her father was already heading to the car at that point since Ann had gotten the bleeding stopped and he was still holding the bloody towel against his throat. He would still need stitches at the hospital.

(Flashback to the kitchen on that day.)

_"If Ron isn't welcomed here because of something Daddy did, then don't ever expect to see me ever again and that includes at our wedding, you or daddy!" yelled Kim. "I'll get someone else to escort me down the aisle."_

_"Fine!" yelled her mother back at her. "That's what you two already decided anyway so what does it matter at this point? You've got what you wanted now so nobody else matters to you anymore! Not your father or me and since you don't care, why should we? Just don't be here when we get back from the hospital."_

_"Fine!" screamed Kim after she got over the shock of what Ann had said to her and Ron. She felt she either had to vent some of her anger or she was going to strike her mother, so picking up the cup that her mother had set down when she rushed out to the back porch, Kim smashed it down on the floor at Ann's feet saying, "There! So much for keeping the family together because I never wanted to see you or anyone else from this house ever again since neither of you are willing to listen to reason. Understand?"_

_For the first time in her life, Ann was stunned and shocked by Kim's actions. She pulled back her hand to slap Kim's face and held it there. Kim could see what she was going to do and had plenty of time to block or dodge it, but she saw something else as well. She saw the hurt in her mother's eyes, the hurt she had put there. Ann's restraint gave out as she finished the unblocked slap that sounded like a thunder clap to her, and said. "Get out. Get out now, both of you before I call the police!"_

_Ron grabbed Kim and started pulling her out of the room as he tried to keep things from getting any worse than they were, but even though Ron was pulling her away, she still remembered wanting to call her mother "Bitch!" several times before he got her out the front door, but the look on her face said it all as Ann stared at her._

_She was quiet all the way back to her house, lost in her own thoughts about what had just happened with her parents, at least with her mother who, except for Ron, had been her best friend all of her life. Ron was the same way on the drive back, knowing that he had been the spark that had led to the explosion between Kim and her parents. He was responsible and he knew that she would blame him just like he was blaming himself. If only he hadn't been so angry when he summoned the Lotus Blade. It was highly receptive to his emotions and when it appeared, he had to adjust his stance for it, which had the tip of the blade pointed directly at the back of James Possible's neck._

_Once they got to the house, he followed her inside fully expecting them to break up forever, the very day that they became engaged to be married._

_"Kim, this is all my fault and I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am. And I fully understand if you never want to see me again. It might help making things right with your parents." he said once they got inside. He then saw her almost collapsed on the floor as she pulled her knees up to her chin, wrapped her arms around herself going into the fetal position and as the tears began to flow, she began sobbing and crying her heart out. She would have had a total mental and emotional breakdown if Ron hadn't been there to hold her, to be an anchor and a life preserver for her. As her world fell apart and she was drowning in despair, he was there to hold her head above water and make sure she didn't slip beneath the surface._

_"No Ron. I can't blame you even if I wanted to." she managed to say in between her sobs. "It's not your fault alone; we all have a share of it. Besides, I need you." He held her for over an hour till the crying subsided. Half an hour later she was calmed down enough to call the hospital to see how her father was doing. After identifying herself as his daughter, she found out that it had taken twenty stitches to properly close the wound, but he would be alright. There would be some scaring that may require a later surgery to remove, but for the present, he was out of danger. It would just take some time to heal before anything else could be done._

_She'd thought at the time that they were talking about the cut on her father's throat and not the damage that they'd done to themselves as well as others. She was wrong. She'd tried to call her parent's house several times over the next four months. Most of the time she'd hang up before she finished dialing the number and a couple of times she'd let it ring once or twice, but she ended up losing her nerve and hung up. She had thought she was the girl that could do anything, but as it turned out, she couldn't even call her parents on the phone to say she was sorry. She tried driving by the day before Christmas, thinking she might be able to work up the nerve on what had been the family's happiest day, but when she saw the house looking so bleak and plain when all the houses around them were bright and shinning with lights and decorations, she just... couldn't face them._

_Ron offered to go to talk to her parents or try and talk to his parents to act as an intermediary for everyone to work it out, but she wanted to keep it between them and involve as few people as possible thinking that to bring others into it knowing it could damage their relationships as well. If Ron had gone it could have started a worse fight or gotten the police involved. They came up with the idea to go ahead and get married thinking that would be a better place and time to bring both them and her parents back together. They still loved each other and she didn't think either one of them could survive without the other's strength, but when the invitation and letter went unanswered, that pretty much told them what her parents thought of the idea. That or what they thought of them getting married._

(Back to the present)

Looking back at her mother with the broken cup, she saw the tears running down her cheeks as she heard her mutter, "That was the last one. They're all gone now and no way to fix them."

"Mom, maybe you're over reacting a little bit. It's just a broken cup and they can always be replaced." Then she added hesitantly. "Or maybe you've just had a touch to much coffee."

Ann looked back at her daughter and with tears still flowing, said, "You don't understand." With those words, something happened to her. The sorrow over the last cup of her family set disappeared and she reverted back to the woman that had led Kim to the kitchen.

"You just don't understand. You were too busy being someone else. Someone neither I or your father knew. This was the last cup and now they are all gone. **All** of them! Your father thought they could just be replaced too and you are just as wrong as he was."

Kim looked at her mother, still not understanding what had just happened. Looking at everything in the room to try and make sense, she looked at the clock and then it dawned on her. It was well past time for her father to have gotten home.

She looked at the table again and at the newspapers. Something didn't make any sense as she thought about her father. There were a lot of newspapers; some still in the plastic wraps the paperboy put on them in when it was raining. But it looked as if none of them had been opened or read. It was a ritual for her father to read his newspaper in the morning and in the evening. It was the main reason she'd always excelled when they had paper drives back in high school. There was only enough cleared space at the table for one person to use and the broken coffee maker, broken and then left there for God knows how long. She was so shocked as an idea exploded in her mind, so she could hardly talk, but she had to ask the question.

"Mom?" Kim said with more fear building in her heart than she thought possible. "Where's dad? He should have been home by now."

Ann held her rigid posture for a few seconds, then she seemed to deflate and with her face filled with pain, she shook her head and whispered, "I don't know."

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TBC

As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, PM me or put it in a review.  
Reviews let me know if you like it or not.


	4. Chapter 4

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.

The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

Thank you's go out to Imyoshi , Beckman, CajunBear73, JaingSkirata, Jimmy1201, ajw1970, temporaryinsanity91, Uberscribbler, Darev and Shinzochi for taking the time to not only read the story but to also leave a review.

And once again a special thanks to temporaryinsanity91 for helping to shape and polish this corn cob into a readable chapter.

To all of those that are reading this story and have updated their own recently I wish to apologize for not having read yours or left a review yet. For what ever reason, this drama has been taking up most of my time in one way or another.

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Ron sat in the meeting with the "suits" and their lawyers while he was there with his lawyer listening to them fighting over his name. It was not the kind of fight he was used to. A couple of years ago, he had agreed and signed a contract to let Bueno Nacho use his name to promote the Naco, thinking the money would go towards financial security for when he asked Kim to marry him. But now the company was claiming they had exclusive rights to his name and he could not use it for anything else, like for the restaurant he wanted to open.

He would have rather have been back home in Upperton, in the house that he and Kim called home since shortly after their wedding. After that day with her parents and after she found out that her father would be okay, they went to a motel with her saying she couldn't spend another night in that house. He stayed with her that night and the next day they made arrangements for a private company to move her stuff out as soon as they found a storage unit to put it in.

He stayed with her every night since, she slept in the bed and he'd sleep in a chair or sometimes next to her, but that day had done something to Kim. It had filled her with fear, the fear to love with all of her heart, without limit, and without reservation. He had hoped that the wedding would help her fear go away. Well, it wasn't the first time he'd been wrong about something.

Even though Kim was holding back, he still felt in his heart that she still loved him. In the mean time, he would try and fill the emptiness with his love for her till she could heal her heart today and not be afraid. It was the main reason that he didn't really mind that they hadn't consummated their marriage yet. Hell, they hadn't even made out since that day. She'd tried to overcome her feelings about it, but he knew every time she thought about it, the image of her father's face, standing there with both of them naked in the middle of making love that day, just before he dropped the baseball bat and ran out of the room would come to her mind and she'd start crying again.

He would wait. He would wait and hope for as long as it took. Even if she never came around but so long as he thought his presence wasn't what was holding her back, he would be there for her as long as she needed him, or wanted him there.

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She asked him to drop off some plans and papers about a satellite that Global Justice thought suspicious that day. They couldn't be faxed but they wanted to see a hard copy. He agreed to drop them off on his way home, but when he walked up to ring the bell, the door was standing open. Poking his head in, he called her name several times didn't hear anything. Walking into the foyer and leaving the papers on the small table there, he started to fear that one of her enemies might have broken in, so he stopped and listened. It was then that he heard her moaning, as if in pain. Grabbing the baseball bat that she kept near the door, he followed the sound to her open bedroom door.

The foot of the bed faced the doorway so when he looked in, all he could see was a naked man's naked behind going up and down in rhythm to Kim's moans as the man was obviously doing things to his daughter. Thinking that she was being raped by an unknown attacker, since Kim would have at least shut the door to the house behind her. And knowing that her father would be stopping by she would have at least waited till he left, James entered the room and rushed up to the side of them to get a good swing at the man's head. Knowing that he would have to move quickly, he rushed in till he thought he had a good target. Closing his eyes in the effort, he swung as hard as he could to try and save his daughter. His fear for her safety must have had his adrenaline pumping because when the bat made contact, it made a sound like he struck a melon and he felt something splatter on his face. Opening his eyes, he saw that he had hit the man's head so hard that he'd actually bashed in part of the back of her rapist's head. There was blood and brains and hair all over him, but it wasn't till that moment that he saw that the man's hair was blond. He thought he heard Kim start screaming as James stood there and look at the dying body of Ron Stoppable, the young man that James had considered his "other" son.

The young man that just four months ago swore to James and Ann, without being asked to, that before he asked Kim to marry him, he would come to them and ask them for permission. They told him then, that he was being old fashioned and that it was Kim that needed to agree, but Ron said he wanted everything to be perfect and he restated his sworn oath that he would ask their permission first.

Looking away from the now dead body, James looked at Kim who had gotten out from under Ron's body and rush him, screaming "You bastard! You God Damn bastard! You've killed him." Wrenching the bat from his now limp hands, she swung it and hit him in the head, screaming "I hate you!" She continued hitting him with the bat and screaming "I hate you!" every time. When he fell to the floor she kept hitting him aiming at his head till she paused. He was barely able to remain conscious, but he looked up at her and heard her say "I'll hate you forever and I hope you burn in Hell." She then swung the bat one more time and he heard the same sickening sound that he heard when he hit Ron in the back of the head.

James grabbed his head as he struggled to get back up in his chair. It was the same dream he'd been having every time he fell asleep for the past half year now, every since he moved out his home. No, that wasn't right. It was a house, not his home now. He was lucky if he got four hours total sleep a night since then. After walking into the small bathroom to wash his face and seeing his refection in the mirror, he didn't think he would have to worry about it much longer. Maybe people could forget what he had done to them then and just get on with their lives. That's what he hoped anyway. Especially for the two women that meant so much to him, the two women he'd hurt so much.

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Previously

Kim looked at her mother, still not understanding what had just happened. Looking at everything in the room to try and make sense, she looked at the clock and then it dawned on her. It was well past time for her father to have gotten home.

She looked at the table again and at the newspapers. Something didn't make any sense as she thought about her father. There were a lot of newspapers; some still in the plastic wraps the paperboy put on them in when it was raining. But it looked as if none of them had been opened or read. It was a ritual for her father to read his newspaper in the morning and in the evening. It was the main reason she'd always excelled when they had paper drives back in high school. There was only enough cleared space at the table for one person to use and the broken coffee maker, broken and then left there for God knows how long. She was stunned at the idea but it begged a question.

"Mom?" Kim said with more fear building in her heart than she thought possible. "Where's dad? He should have been home by now."

Ann's face held her rigid look for a few seconds before it relaxed and replaced with a sense of pain as she said, "I don't know."

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Now staring at the door that led out to where it had all started and came to a head, she said, "I just don't know."

"After five months of meeting with a councilor twice a week and reaching the conclusion that we'd gone as far as we could without including our daughter and her (pause) boyfriend, we accidentally met Monique at the store on our way home from the last session." Ann said as if she were in a daze, talking more to herself instead of her daughter. "All she could do was go on about the "wedding" and what she had planned. After we told her our side of the story, we got her to swear to not say anything to the "happy couple." It hit James really hard when he had to finally admit some things to himself."

"We'd been sleeping in separate rooms since we got home from the hospital with his stitches. He was afraid that his tossing and turning would keep me awake since I still had my duties and my own rounds to do the next day so he started sleeping in the guest room. It was only suppose to be for a few days, but those days turned into weeks and then months. We hardly ever saw or talked to one another except in passing. And then we spoke with Monique. I knew that he'd need me more than ever and I asked him to move back into our room. He said he do it the next day, that he's take some time off from work to move the things back in that he had slowly moved to the guest room, clothes, toiletries, his laptop and such."

"I had a procedure to do early the next morning and then rounds so it was late when I got home. All of his stuff had been moved out of the guest room but when I went into our room, all I found was this letter on his side of the bed." Ann then pulled a sheet of paper out of her pocket and laid it on the table. The folded paper looked like it had been crinkled, waded up and then ironed out again so many times it almost looked like an old piece of cloth. Since her mother hadn't looked at Kim once during her telling of the story or when she put the paper on the table, Kim reached over, picked it up and started reading it through the tears stains on the paper.

_Dear Ann,_

_From the moment I first met you, you have always been beautiful, not only with your looks, but there was something in your eyes, a sparkle, that showed the inner beauty inside you. That sparkle disappeared for a short time when your parents passed away, but it slowly came back as you worked through the pain. Kim always had the same sparkle in her eyes that you did. The spark in her eyes died the day we had the blow up, and up until the day of her wedding day, I thought, or I hoped that it would return. When I knew that we wouldn't even be attending, I knew that I'd never see that sparkle in her eyes again. That was also when I realized that light in your eyes had been slowly dying away since you slapped Kim's face because of me. The day Kim married Ron, was the same day the look in your eyes went out completely, and I know whose fault the most beautiful part of you died. _

_I can't begin to measure how much I hurt you as well as Kim, and you may say what you will, but I know it was my fault. I know it, and deep down you know it too; you just refuse to admit it to me and maybe to yourself. _

_Not till just before her wedding did I realize how broken we are as a family and I'm the one standing there with a hammer in my hand. If I just had walked out of her house that day and hadn't tried to apologize to her, if I'd just kept my mouth shut when I talked to Ron because Kim refused to talk to me, if I'd just gone to a bar and gotten drunk instead of coming home to try and figure out what had happened, or even if I had been in a car accident and died, any one of those thing would have been better for you than this Hell I put you through. _

_I could live with what I've done if I were the only one affected, but seeing you get dragged down with me is more than I can take. So if you still think that you care anything for me, please go out and find someone that can breathe life back into that spark and have some joy in your life. I know if I stick around, I'll only serve as a reminder of what I caused you to do that day. I can't forgive myself so I know I can't ask you to forgive me._

With tears in her eyes, Kim put down the letter, but before she could form any questions to ask her mother, Ann continued.

"I drove right to the Space Center after I tried calling his cell phone, only to have it go to voice mail each time. Once I got there I found out that he'd already canceled my authorized visitor's status. The center's importance since the Lowardians had been bumped up so they not only have their normal security but a secondary group of military guards guarding the facility. The only way I could get in then was with a scheduled appointment with a member of the board of directors, Dr. Cook, Dr. Harris, Dr. Kramer, or the chairman of the board, Dr. Wong. None of them were available. Frank would have been willing to let me in, but the military guards wouldn't have been so compassionate about an unauthorized person running around in the center looking for her husband. Frank tried calling his office and cell phone but he didn't get any answer either. So I came back to this empty house and cried. I didn't know if I would have ever slept except that I remembered a bottle of gin we had left over from years ago."

"The next day I called both Bob Chen and Ramesh to see if they'd heard from James. They both said they hadn't talked to him for several months, but after I explained why I needed to talk to him, they both said they'd try and call him. In the mean time I got an appointment set up with Dr. Wong for 1:00pm. Before then, both Ramesh and Bob called back to say they didn't have any luck. When I was admitted to the Space Center with a temporary pass, I was escorted up to Dr Wong's office by an armed guard so I didn't even have a chance to try to look for him."

"When I got to her office, the guard remained outside the door. Dr Wong was polite and very understanding but she said her hands were tied. James may have been overcome with grief and self pity but he wasn't stupid. He'd already been to their human resources and changed his personal data sheets. I was no longer listed as his next of kin or as his personal doctor so I had no right to try to see him or interrupt his schedule. She did promise me that she would make sure that he knew I'd been there and that she could and would require him to talk to the center's psychiatrist the very next day. If he refused, he could be relieved of all of duties."

When Ann didn't go on, Kim asked, "What happened then?"

Sighing while still in a daze and ignoring Kim's presence, Ann said, "He stepped down as head of any projects he was working on before his meeting. Since he was no longer in any position of heading any projects that limited them to what they could do. All they could do then was monitor his work and suggest he take some time off and spend it with his family. That was the closest I've come to seeing him since."

Ann's voice fell silent after that. She just kept staring at the back door as if she hoped James would walk in any second. Between her tears and the discovery of what had happened with her parents over the last year, Kim was in a mild state of shock. It took her a few minutes to be able to form the question, "Why?"

"Why didn't you call me mother when this happened? I might have been able to do something! Didn't you think I'd care?"

"Why?" Ann repeated the question as she was pulled out of her daze and turned to face Kim. "Why would I think you cared? You told us pretty damn well what you thought of us, of both of us, not to long ago, or have you already forgotten?"

"Mom!" Kim felt the heat of anger flush through her body "I was mad, angry and scared that day. You know I've always loved and respected both of you!"

"Oh really? Then who was Wanda and Eugene Crumples? Who were they? Those were the names you wanted us to use when we were trying to learn to line dance. Why? Because you would have felt ashamed of us if any of your friends found out your parents wanted to line dance. What about your skiing trip when we chaperoned for your class in high school? Do I remember you using the phrase 'humiliation nation' because you felt we humiliated you when all we did was try to talk to your friends?"

Kim was stunned into silence by the memories her mother was stirring up and she was trying to answer her, but nothing came from her mouth.

Ann barreled on, her wounded rage intensifying with every word."What about your father's Roth SL coupe?"

"The Sloth?" asked Kim, still dazed.

Ann's eyes glinted with anger. "It was his very first car. Did you think he was keeping it around just to take up space? He wanted to keep it in the family. He wanted to help you restore it. Together. But that would have meant you spending some time with him and maybe sharing some of your precious self with him. It would have been a chance for him and Ron to get to know each other too, but no! That wasn't your thing."

"But the twins... They just fixed it up a little!"

"No! They didn't just fix it up a little, they destroyed it, with your blessings! By the time they were done there was nothing left of his coupe! Anything original had to be hauled off to the dump as scrap! How do you think your father felt about that? Scrapping out his first car because _you_ didn't like it, _you_ just had to have something _you_ wouldn't have been ashamed of being seen in. A status symbol for_ you_. That meant that they had build _you_ a new car out of all new parts. The only thing that was the same was the color. And who do you think had to pay for all those parts and paint?"

"They did?" suggested Kim since she hadn't ever really thought about it.

"They paid for it by maxing out our credit cards! We wanted you to learn about the cost and financial responsibilities of driving and maintaining a car. Not by it just being handed to you on a silver platter. And You couldn't even be bothered to give us a 'thanks'"

Kim's temper flashed white hot and she finally gave in. "Is that it?" she shouted, "is that the reason you two wouldn't come to my _wedding_? You didn't come to the most important moment of my _life_ because of some things I did back when I was a teenager? Because of your damn credit cards?"

"How dare you!" Ann shouted back with indignation as she stood up to face her daughter. "How dare you think we would show up at your wedding, where we weren't wanted. Where we weren't even invited. What the Hell kind of people do you think we are crashing our own daughter's wedding?"

Kim rose up to look her mother straight in the eyes as she said, "That's what I want to...Wait...What do you mean you weren't invited?" Kim's anger gave way to confusion. "We sent you an invitation," she mumbled. "I enclosed a letter asking you for a chance to..."

"We never got any invitation." Ann spat back at her. "Not in the mail, voice mail, text or even an e-mail. I checked every single day, double checked after Monique told us they'd been mailed out." yelled Ann, her anger not subsiding. "Next you'll tell me that it must have gotten lost in the mail which would be a pretty damn convenient excuse after the fact. That way you can claim anything you want and not have to provide any proof. Blame it on the mail."

Kim's mind raced with that revelation. Remembering all of the hurtful things that had been said that day by everybody, if she'd been in her parents shoes and not gotten an invitation to the wedding, yeah, she would have felt betrayed and forgotten by two people that meant so much to her. Could all of this be the end result of an invitation that got lost somewhere in the mail?

She hadn't called to make sure they got the invitation. Why? She was afraid of what they might say to her. They probably hadn't called to see if one had been sent for the same exact reason. Her house of cards, built on the idea that her parents hadn't wanted to attend the wedding of their daughter, suddenly came crashing down leaving nothing but pain and suffering behind for everybody.

Now she was even more nervous and scared than when she first walked up to the door to ring the doorbell, knowing that she had reached a make or break point, she said with fear squeezing her heart and clogging her throat, "Mother, we really did mail you and dad an invitation to our wedding. We wanted, I wanted both of you there."

Her mother studied her with a hard, penetrating gaze. It almost felt as if she was trying to see into Kim's soul. Ann glanced out the window in the kitchen for a moment before turning back to her daughter. "It looks like it might start raining any minute now," she said blankly, "You'd best go now before you get drenched. But please Kimberly, on top of everything else you've said and done, don't add lying to it. It's way too late for that."

If Kim had been a porcelain doll dropped from from a three story building onto a concrete sidewalk, she couldn't have felt more shattered than she did when her mother spoke those words to her. Something gave way inside Kim. Tears started welling in her eyes as weakness attacked her knees. Kim voice sounded weak and frail as she reached out to grab her mother's hand and said, "Mom we sent it to you. I'm not lying. We really did send it."

Ann gently took Kim's hand and removed it from her's and with her own voice sounding just as unsteady, said, "Please don't come back here again. You have no idea how much this hurts." She then turned her back to Kim and started walking out of the room.

Kim's knees buckled as all semblance of control fled from her mind and body. She fell to the floor near the doorway."I sent it! I mailed it myself," She cried out, the words sounding warbled between her sobs. She could barely make out the form of her mother now as her tears flooded her eyes before they ran down her cheeks but she could still hear Ann footsteps as she walked away from her. Her head slammed against the door frame again and again, but the pain from in her head did nothing to lessen the searing pain of her heart breaking.

"I sent it!" she mumbled as she cried like she never had before. "I sent it! You have to believe me." She barely registered the blurry form of Ann's body, still moving away from her, abandoning her.

"**Mommiiie**!" she screamed at her mother.

"I sent it!" she managed desperately, trying to yell one last time before she ran out of breath, not having enough air to yell and cry at the same time.

The only thing she had the strength to do now was to keep banging her head against the frame and cry. She had no idea how long she did that till a hand reached out, cupped and held the side of her head to stop her. After blinking hard several times to try and clear the tears from her eyes, she saw her mother's face looking at her, trying to gather her own control to say something to Kim.

After a long silence punctuated by Kim's sobs, Ann whispered, "Swear to me."

"What?" Kim asked weakly, her voice hoarse.

Ann's lips trembled along with her voice as she said, "Swear to me that you sent that invitation. Swear to me that you wanted us there. Swear to me that you wanted us to be a family again, then and now."

"I swear it," she sobbed, "by all that's holy, Mommie, I swear it!" With all the strength she had left, Kim wrapped her arms around her mother and cried uncontrollably into her shoulder.

Ann's hands gently massaged Kim's back, trying to relieve the muscle tension there and give her comfort, but as she did this, Kim's words sank in, breaking down Ann's own walls that she had built up. Her fingers dug into Kim's back trying to drawn her closer in an embrace of not two women trying to give comfort to the other, but the embrace of a mother and daughter as Ann started crying just as hard as her daughter was.

Outside, the skies had finally opened up as the rain fell. The shower would be a hard one, lasting for over an hour, without a rainbow at the end because the sun was not yet ready to burn through the other overcast clouds.

Somewhere in the house, an old, staticky voice echoed before the next radio song selection, announcing the forecast for tomorrow: cloudy, with a slight chance for sunshine.

_So easy to hurt_

_so hard to forgive_

_and there's no getting over_

_the people we've been_

_but it sounds like a question_

_when we say "this is it"_

_won't you stay around_

_tell me that we're better off now_

_wait it out_

_tell me that we're better off now_

_we're better off now_

_From the first time we heard this_

_we were quick to believe_

_that light on the surface_

_was dark underneath_

_knew enough to be nervous_

_but we just couldn't quit_

_stay around_

_tell me that we're better off now_

_wait it out_

_tell me that we're better off now_

_we're better off, better off now_

_let's say that the sun might show up here tomorrow_

_and we could go back to that place_

_let's say that the sun might show up here tomorrow_

_and we will find the love we misplace_

_just tell me that we're better off now_

_just tell me that we're better off now_

_stay around_

_tell me that we're better off now_

_we're better off now_

_better off now_

_x_

_x_

_x_

(Please check out the music listed below. It completes this chapter.)

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TBC

Song and lyrics Better Off Now by Trent Dabbs. A copy available at www dot youtube dot com slash watch?v=iXdAGDD6Zxo watch?v=iXdAGDD6Zxo

As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, PM me or put it in a review.

Reviews let me know if you like it or not.


	5. Chapter 5

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.

The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

xxx

Time to say thank you to the people that have left reviews for the previous chapter.

Imyoshi, WheelchairDiva, CajunBear73, Uberscribbler, temporaryinsanity91, ajw1970, Jimmy1201, Beckman, and Shinzochi.

I didn't mention it in the story, but the condition of the letter that James left was due to the number of times Ann had wadded it up, thrown it away, pulled it out of the trash and ironed after thinking that it may be the last letter she ever receives from him. Also from the tear stains, hers and his. This had happened several time over the past six months.

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-Warning-

There is going to be some derogatory language used in this chapter

that can offend people. It is not meant to offend

anyone but is a part of the story

and is necessary to the plot.

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Previously

Ann's lips trembled along with her voice as she said, "Swear to me that you sent that invitation. Swear to me that you really wanted us to be there. Swear to me that you wanted us to be a family again, then and now."

"I swear it," she sobbed, "by all that's holy, Mommie, I swear it!" With all the strength she had left, Kim wrapped her arms around her mother and cried uncontrollably into her shoulder.

Ann's hands gently massaged Kim's back, trying to relieve the muscle tension there and give her comfort, but as she did this, Kim's words sank in, breaking down Ann's own walls that she had built up. Her fingers dug into Kim's back trying to drawn her closer in an embrace of not two women trying to give comfort to the other, but the embrace of a mother and daughter as Ann started crying just as hard as her daughter was.

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It took well over an hour for mother and daughter to reach a point where they could talk. Just as one would start to get her emotions under control, looking at the other still crying would start them all over again. When they did get to the point they could talk, they were both exhausted.

"Are you alright Kimmie?" asked Ann as she tried to sniffle up the last remains of her tears.

"Yeah," answered Kim weakly. "How about you?"

"I've been better, but. I know that this was necessary and I hope that this was a good thing, but we still need to talk a lot of things out."

"I know mom, but we need to do something important before we to anything else."

"What's that Kim?"

"We need to go to Smarty Mart and get you a new coffee machine. That instant coffee isn't what we're going to need to get through this."

Looking over at the old broken coffee maker, Ann sighed as she remembered she'd broken the carafe a couple of days after she found James's letter on their bed. Looking back now, she saw how they had gone through several of the stages of the grief model. Denial came when they couldn't believe that their blow up with Kim and Ron had really happened and they thought that they could all make up and everyone be forgiven. It was really the acceptance when they thought that they had been excluded from the wedding, that that would be happening. That was when Ann thought they would just move on with their lives. It would be hard, but she thought they'd find some way to do it. She hadn't realized James had sunk into an even deeper depression that she had when he said he blamed himself for everything. When she got so mad at him for trying to shoulder all the blame and then leaving her. That was when she took her anger out on the coffee maker when for some insane reason she blamed it for all of their troubles.

It was days before she cleaned up the broken glass and the mess she'd made, gathering all the parts and pieces and placing them on the warming pad, turning it into a sort of a headstone for her family. That was when she went out and bought her first jar of instant coffee and the first of many bottles of gin. Full blown depression had sunk in. That was also when a friend and colleague, a psychiatrist, strongly suggested she take a sabbatical to try and get herself in some sort of order before she allowed her emotional state to affect her professional judgment. To think that someone could die on the operating table or that she could misdiagnose a life threatening problem because she couldn't cope, scared Ann into taking the sabbatical.

Kim, seeing her mother lost in thought while staring at the old coffee maker, thought she might have an idea now of what was going through her mother's mind, so she tentatively said as she hugged her mother's shoulders, "Mom. We're just going to buy another one just like that one. We're not going to trade up and try to replace the old one with something newer or different, just try and repair what we had, the best we can now."

Ann closed her eyes and patted Kim's hand as she mulled over that thought. "Just try and repair what we had, the best we can now." She nodded her head in agreement, knowing that they couldn't change what they'd done. They could try and understand those events and maybe deal with them now. She had something she would have to clear up in her own mind so far as Ron and that day before any hope of convincing James about the events could be considered. They would still have to find James, but it was late and the people they needed to talk to weren't available.

First things first though. Coffee. Real coffee and more talking over the past with her daughter to try and repair what they had. Ann went to the table and picked up the jar of instant coffee and the empty gin bottle and dropped both of them in the trash can.

Kim smiled at her mother's victory. It may have only been a simple act, but to Kim, her mother just set foot on the moon.

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The trip to the store was made mostly in silence as both of the women tried to figure out the best way for them to proceed with dealing with their past. Any thoughts that Kim had made on the subject, in the event she and her mother had gotten as far as they had, had been dashed to the ground with the revelation of the lost invitation. Kim knew that she would need to track it down and find out what had happened, just to remove any shadow of a doubt from anybody's mind that it had been sent. She didn't think her mother had any of those doubts, but it would still be nice to be able to prove it.

Ann tried asking her daughter a little bit about the wedding and where they went for their honeymoon, thinking it would have been a happy memory for her. Kim explained that the replacement for Rabbi Katz, who had been called away to take care of his mother who was in a hospice, had declined to perform the ceremony, which was his prerogative since she was not Jewish. They ended up getting a justice of the peace to perform a civil ceremony in a rented hall. Kim didn't mention that she had no real ties to any specific church in Middleton except the one she went to with her parents and she didn't want to try to have the minister there do it thinking it would be too awkward.

After telling her mother the names of most of the people that were there, Kim said, "Uncle Slim wrote back that he and Joss wouldn't be able to attend. It was right in the middle of a tour for the Make a Wish Foundation and Nana was spending the summer there with them, telling the kids campfire stories about her life. Aunt June said they were vacationing in Europe and wouldn't be there either. I'm not sure if they were making that up as an excuse not to come or not."

Ann said sadly, "I'm sorry Kim. They had called and asked about you. Neither your father nor I ever gave any specifics but we did tell them that we were having some family problems and weren't really talking to one another. I didn't know about them not attending."

"It's alright mom. We were sorry they didn't attend, but the two Possibles that we wanted to be there most weren't.. (pause).. for a totally different reason than we thought back then. Hopefully we can do something about that later." Kim then continued hesitantly, "We ...ah... haven't been on a honeymoon yet. It just didn't feel right at the time and we were waiting to ….. and …... I mean...We haven't even..." She trailed off, the words dying in her throat.

When Kim couldn't go on, Ann managed to side step the question by pointing out the entrance to the Smarty Parking lot. She felt Kim had some issues that she wasn't ready to share yet, which was alright. They were both walking an unknown path and neither of them knew when or if the ground would give way beneath them so it was best to tread carefully.

Thankful for the diversion from a conversation she didn't know if she was ready for with her mom, Kim pulled in and parked the car.

When they entered the store, Ann smiled as she looked around at the well lit store. "It's been a while since I got out of the house to go shopping. It's nice to see people for a change."

"You got out and saw people when you did your grocery shopping didn't you?" asked Kim leaving out her mother's trips to the liquor store for gin.

Ann paused as she realized her mistake in letting that little bit of information slip around Kim. She had already started to let her barriers down around her, hence the slip, but she also knew that someone had to be ready to start talking about _things_ and not hide behind their own silence.

"Kim, I..." Ann tried a couple of times to speak, but her words failed her. "Kim, I haven't been out of the house in the last four months,"she finished in a rush after her attempts at speaking, trying to get the words out before she lost her courage. Once she got through the confession, it was easier to continue speaking to her daughter. "Not since my last day at the hospital. Your Aunt June was nice enough to pick up a few thing at the store for me until I found a place that I could order from and they would deliver. Your cousin Larry would stop by the Lowerton Liquor Store every week or so and get me anything else I needed. He said he understood feeling all alone himself."

Kim just stared at her mother. She had no idea that Ann had almost become a total recluse, hiding away from other people in her house, cutting herself off from everyone. She and Ron both had avoided going to the places that they knew her parents frequented, but they hadn't cut themselves off from everybody.

Thinking again, if she and Ron had broken up and she had been by herself like her mother had been, then she might have done something like her mom had done, feeling that alone.

Taking a deep breath, Kim looked into her mother's eyes and hoped that the weakened bond between them just got a little stronger as she put on her best smile and said, "Come on mom. We need to get what we came for and go home so we can make sure that neither one of us ever feels that way again." After a slight pause she added a question. "Ah, is it alright with you if I spend the night if needed? That way we can continue when we both get up."

Ann gave her a quick smile. "It is your old home Kim." she said sincerely, "Of course you can stay tonight."

"No mom. You and daddy were what made it my home. It's still you and daddy, but now Ron is a part of it too."

Avoiding the subject of Ron for the moment, Ann said, "Let's go get what we came for and get started then."

Their first stop led them to the grocery section where Ann picked up a sack of Dark Jamaican Blend coffee beans and as she waited for the beans to grind in the store grinder, Kim inhaled the heady aroma of her childhood, even before the missions began, when she would go shopping with her mother. Daddy would do his once a week duty and babysit sit the twins, who were still in diapers, because this was a mommy/daughter time.

After the grinder was finished and the bag sealed, they headed back to the kitchen wares/appliances section of the store to rid Ann's kitchen of the family's tombstone and bring back something that would breathe life back into them. It may have just been a coffee maker to some people, but it had always been a central part of her family's life.

It only took a few minutes for Ann to find the make and model she was looking for, not a replacement for what they had before her anger smashed it into a million pieces, just a way to restore what she use to have. As she turned to show her daughter that she'd found what they were after, she saw that Kim had found something too, or some things rather.

While her mother was looking through the myriad of different coffee making appliances, on the other side of the aisle was Chinaware. Kim picked up two items and had turned back to her mother as Ann turned to her. In Kim's hand were two cup of the same pattern and style as the set that Ann had just broken the last remaining cup from.

After seeing the disappointed look on her mother's face, Kim said, "Mom, I know the originals can't be simply replaced, but there is no way to truly fix them short of using a time machine and undoing what happened in the past. It's not possible, I don't care what our last name is, or was. All I want to do is try and restore what we had with these. That's all. Restore what we had, what we lost."

When she didn't get any kind of reaction from her mother except for a blank stare, Kim turned and grabbed another one off the shelf and said, "This one can be for dad, after we find him and explain what happened. Hopefully we can be a family again, but if we can't do that, maybe we could at least be friends."

All Kim could see in Ann's face was the same blank look, but Ann saw Kim's eyes pleading with her to accept the simple offering for what it was, a way to say "I'm sorry." Slowly, Ann reached behind her daughter and picked up another cup off the shelf and placed it in Kim's hand as she said, "And that one can be for Ron, after I talk things over with him." And then she gave her a warm smile.

Kim started to return that smile, but then her eyes went wide as she said, "Ron! Oh my God!" and then quickly set the cups in the grocery cart so she could pull out her cell phone and turned it on.

"What's wrong Kim?"

"I was supposed to call him over an hour ago to let him know how things were going. He made me promise and he must be worried sick by now." When the phone finally finished loading, she saw she had five messages. She ignored them as she tried calling her husband. When her call went to voice-mail, she left a quick message for him to call her and then she checked her messages. They were all from Ron.

The first message was that the meeting had been a flop. They were going to have to take the case before a judge in court. Since that was the case, they were going to try and get a flight home tonight. Wishing his love, he reminded her to call him after she talked to her mother and whatever happened, he was proud of her. The second voice-mail was another reminder for her to call him. The third voice-mail was a "You haven't called yet and I'm starting to get worried." message. The fourth message was that they were headed to the airport to try and see if a passenger might have canceled on a flight back to Middleton. Please call! The fifth message was that he had managed to get a "seat" on a plane carrying freight tonight, kinda like some of the flights they'd flown on when they were doing missions. He would have to turn off his cell phone so it didn't interfere with the plane's navigational instruments. Yeah, it was that old a plane. The flight would take about three hours so please call before he went crazy, ier.

Before Kim could call to leave him a message for when he could turn his cell phone back on, telling him things were going pretty good and about how she was going to spend the night, her mother said, "Kim, ask him to grab a cab when he gets in and please meet us at the house. I'm going to need to talk to him, face to face."

"Mom, I can pretty much tell you what..." started Kim before Ann interrupted her when she slowly repeated, "Face to face."

Kim reluctantly agreed. His plane should be landing in about an hour and a half so that would give the two ladies about the same amount of time to talk before Ron showed.

After getting back to the house, Ann made the first pot of real coffee in the house for the first time in over half a year. While she was doing that, Kim cleared to table of all the old newspapers by putting them in a trash bag and setting it by the door. Her father always said that old news wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. All the unopened bills went into a neat stack on the dining room table to be looked at later since Kim knew that the bills use to be paid automatically on-line. The paper that was mailed was usually just a hard copy of the receipt.

After they'd both taken their first sips of coffee, Ann asked Kim to explain from her point of view, exactly what happened that dreaded day out on the back porch. She had heard James's version several time when they were in family consoling. It had been hard to get him to open up about it since he seemed to believe that he had started the whole thing, but once he did, his version never wavered.

Kim started telling her mother the whole story, but Ann said she was only interested in what happened after they got here, for now. The other things could wait, she wanted to know about how Ron cut James's throat.

It was slow going for Kim and about half way through Ron called to say the plane made good time since they had a good tail wind and he would be there in about twenty minutes. When she was done, Ann sat there and tried to understand it. It took several minutes before she could articulate what she thought.

"So, you're saying that Ron's sword is intelligent and know what he's thinking when he summons it and that when it does come to him it's ready to do what he's feeling?" she finally asked with more than a twinge of disbelief in her voice.

"Yes." Kim replied sounding sure of herself.

"No." she amended her answer after still seeing unconvinced look on her mother's face.

"Sort of?" she finally settled on sounding totally unsure if even that was the proper answer.

"Mom, it's complicated and I'm not sure how to put it into words. Ron might be able to better explain it. You and daddy knew that he could call it, after Sensei said it was alright for him to tell us, when he needed it, so you accepted that part of it's mysticism. It doesn't really know what he's thinking. It sorta knows more about what he's feeling. Does that make sense?"

After Ann thought about it, she said, "No."

"It was hard enough to accept that it would show up when he called it, like a pet. Even his mole rat, Rufus, wasn't that dependable."

What she didn't understand, was who was in control, Ron or the sword.

Just as Kim said that Ron had best try and explain it, the front doorbell rang. As both ladies stood up to answer it, Ann said, "Kim. I need to talk to Ron about his alone. I know this is going to be hard for you, but I need you to promise me that you will stay right here, no matter what you hear or what you think, I need you to stay right here in that chair."

"But mom, he..."

"Please Kimberly, I really need to do this without any kind interference if we're going to have any chance of rebuilding our relationship as a family. If that's what you want, if you think you can trust me, you'll promise me to stay right here."

Hearing the doorbell ring again, Kim exhaled and said. "Mom. You're scarring me." But after a minute of hesitation, she said, "But, I promise. I'll stay in here so you two can talk."

"No matter what?"

It took her a couple more seconds to answer, but she said, "No matter what. I'll stay here."

Ann turned and walked through the dining room to answer the door knowing that this was going to be the hardest thing she'd ever had to. When she opened it, there was Ron, but as soon as he saw it wasn't Kim that answered it, he lowered his gaze down and said in a formal voice, "Good even Mrs. Doctor Possible. I'm gratefully that you've given Kim and me this chance to for a possible reconciliation." He tried to smile at his intended pun to lighten the mood, but the lady that was now his mother-in-law didn't seem to appreciate the humor, so he dropped his smile quickly.

"Hello Ronald. Thank you for coming." Ann said in a formal voice with her face showing a blank mask of emotions. "Would you mind stepping into the living room please? We have something very important to discuss."

Eager to please her at this awkward moment, and not really sure where Kim was, Ron quickly agreed as he said, "Yes ma'am." He then quickly went into the living room hoping that Kim would be in there waiting for him. Ron didn't notice that Ann took a deep breath as he had his back to her.

When he didn't see Kim in the living room, he turn back to face Ann just as she came up behind him and without warning, slapped him as hard as she could. Ron staggered and almost fell, from more of the shock instead of the force of it, even though she had put a lot of force in it. He pressed a hand to his quickly reddening cheek and stared at the woman he thought he knew and saw an expression of anger and hate on her face as she yelled, "What in the hell makes you think you have the right to even touch my daughter, let alone marry her you god damn, half dicked, kike Jew?"

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What would make Ann Possible strike and talk to Ron that way?

Next chapter will answer that and a lot more.

TBC

As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, let me know in a review. They let me know if you like it or not.


	6. Chapter 6

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.

The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Time to say thank you to the people that have left reviews for the previous chapter.

CajunBear73, temporaryinsanity91, Sentinel103, pcfreak30, Imyoshi, Beckman, UnknownDescent, Jimmy1201, ajw1970, and Shinzochi.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

And again a special thanks goes out to temporaryinsanity91 for helping to shape and polish this chapter.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

-Warning-

There is going to be some derogatory language used in this chapter

that can offend people. It is not meant to offend

anyone but is a part of the story

and is necessary to the plot.

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Previously

Eager to please her at this awkward moment, and not really sure where Kim was, Ron quickly agreed as he said, "Yes ma'am." He then quickly went into the living room hoping that Kim would be in there waiting for him. Ron didn't notice that Ann took a deep breath as he had his back to her.

When he didn't see Kim in the living room, he turn back to face Ann just as she came up behind him and without warning, slapped him as hard as she could. Ron staggered and almost fell, from more of the shock instead of the force of it, even though she had put a lot of force in it. He pressed a hand to his quickly reddening cheek and stared at the woman he thought he knew and saw an expression of anger and hate on her face as she yelled, "What in the hell makes you think you have the right to even touch my daughter, let alone marry her you god damn, half dicked, kike Jew?"

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The shock of what she said hit him harder than the slap in the face. The woman that he had always thought of like a second mother to him, even after that day everything blew up, was now someone he didn't know. This person looked more like an angry banshee, spittle practically flying from her lips as she addressed him now. Outside, the rain had stopped but thunder sounded occasionally to reflect her mood with distant flashes of lightening adding their own fireworks that came into the room through the windows.

"You planned this whole thing. Didn't you?! Just so she would have no one else to turn to. That way you could take her from us so you could have it all to yourself. You stole our baby girl from us you rat bastard son of a bitch!" she screamed as she launched several more slaps at his face.

He had recovered enough to block most of them with their force landing where his arms were shielding his face. "Mrs. Dr. P.!" he yelled. "Didn't Kim tell you? It wasn't anything like..."

"Don't you dare call me that!" she almost hissed at him. "You have no right, so don't you ever call me that again! The only person that was allowed to call me that was someone I cared for!" Anne advanced on him, rage burning in her eyes. "You. Are. _Not! _That. Person. I loved you like a son!" Ann's screams of fury were punctuated by the sound of her hands connecting with his face as she slapped him. No wonder you tried to kill James! You knew you would never be able to compete with him in the long run."

"Look, this was a mistake in me..." started Ron.

"Mistake?" echoed Ann, fury in her voice. "_Mistake_?! The only mistake made was when we let you into our house, our home, when we trusted you. We thought you felt something towards us as a family but you only wanted to get in Kim's pants," she spat.

"That's not true and you know it! Kim loves me, or else she wouldn't have married me!" he replied with the anger starting to build in him having given up the idea of escape.

"Loves you?" exclaimed Ann with disbelief. "Loves you?!" and now her voice took on a mocking tone. "The way she thought she loved Walter Nelson or Bobby Johnson? What about Josh Mankey? She thought she loved them too."

When all of the emotion drained out of his face and she could see that he was having to work to keep his rising temper and anger under control, she added, "I know! You mean the same way she loved Eric! She thought he was perfect and he lied to us the same way you did."

"I did not lie to you." Ron almost yelled his answer to her.

"You lied to us when you swore that oath about asking us for her hand! You knew in your heart what we would have done! Laughed at the boy that thought he was a man!"

"I was going to ask you that night, but Kim..."

"Oh, blame it all on Kim. Like I said, 'the boy that thought he was a man.' At least you pretended to look like a man when you attacked James after calling that sword. Hiding behind Kim just makes you look like a little girl."

"I'm not hiding behind Kim and I didn't called the sword to use against him! I just want to show him I could protect her!"

"Well the only thing showed was that you are a treacherous little bastard that attacked and tried to kill her unarmed father!"

"I didn't call it to—"

"What did you call it for then? Trying to show him yours is bigger?"

"To prove I could protect Kim if I needed to!"

"Then do it!" she yelled at Ron. "Do it now!"

"Do what?"

"Call your god damn sword! Show me you could protect my daughter!"

"No!"

"Show me that you're at least man enough to do that!"

"No!"

"Show me there's a reason for you to even exist you little kike Jew!" she screamed at him, her body literally shaking with rage.

The air between them started to shimmer and before a clock could register a second's passing, the sword appeared between them, hanging in the air as if an invisible hand held it ready to attack or defend. The grip towards Ron stomach and the tip pointing at her throat. Ron had to reach out to grab the hilt since it almost looked as if the unseen hand might be read to attack her itself if he didn't hold it back.

A flash of lightening left over from the rain storm filled the room and froze them in a tableau. After their eyes readjusted breaking the spell that held them frozen, Ron's gaze traveled from his hand up the length of the four foot long razor blade, past the tip that was sharp enough and strong enough to carve a school from the very bones of the earth and he looked into the face of Kim's mother, now devoid of any anger, hate or contempt that was there just a second ago. Just an expectant look that said she was waiting for something.

In an instant Ron's mind took him back to that day when he has summoned the sword to show James how quickly he could react so he could protect Kim if necessary.

_They had been arguing and James had just gotten out of Ron's face after yelling at him about how the only reason Ron was still alive was because James had realized who it was that was on top of his daughter. If it hadn't been for that, Ron brains would have been splattered all over Kim's bedroom. Disgust was plainly written on his face as he turned his back to him and started to walk away. Ron thought to show how quickly he could summon a way to protect Kim and he would see it as soon as he turned around. What Ron hadn't counted on was that the sword would appear with it's tip pointing directly at the back of James's neck, and that James would turn so soon. Kim's dad must have thought of something else to say to him that needed to be said with their faces less than two inches from each other, but when he pivoted on his next step and turned to move back to continue, he had already walked into the point of the Lotus Blade. If Ron hadn't reacted as quickly as he did and pulled the blade away from his throat, Kim would have witnessed her father impale himself through the throat and seen the blade come out the back of his neck. But even though Ron was quick to react, he hadn't been quick enough to avoid cutting him enough that blood now ran from the cut in his throat. As James's hand came up to staunch the flow, the two men stared at each other with looks of shock on their faces. As James sank down to his knees, Ron thought the look of shock on his face was replaced by a look of hurt and of betrayal, like having been betrayed by someone you trusted with your life. _

_Kim had called for her mother to come almost before the first drops of blood appeared. All the two men could do was stare at each other, not even able to utter a word to the other. As Ann came rushing out to the back porch, the first thing she saw was her husband on his knees holding his throat while blood leaked from between his fingers with Ron standing over him with Lotus Blade still in his hand, still raised as if he might finish what he might have started. Using the clean towel that she had brought out with her out of habit from having raised not only Kim but both of her accident creating brothers, Ann rushed to James as she instructed Kim to get the first aid kit as well, placing herself between Ron and her husband with her back purposefully towards Ron. Ann inspected the cut seeing that the blood was flowing from the wound instead of pulsing of squirting, telling her that the jugular vein hadn't been cut, which meant that he wasn't going to die immediately so long as she was able to stop the bleeding. As she inspected it, she said, "Either put that sword away and get out of here now while I'm busy or used it on both of us. Once I'm finished with making sure that you haven't killed him, I'll be wanting to find out what in the hell you thought you were doing here and you might not like the way I tell you to leave. You didn't respect him enough to pay attention when he told you you weren't welcome here anymore, so I have no reason to believe you would show me any more respect than you did him. If I have to I will call the police." _

_Kim had come back out in time to hear most of what her mother said. She placed and opened Ann's medical bag by her side where she could find anything she might need. Before Ron could try to explain what had happened, Kim asked, "Is there anything we can do to help?"_

"_No. I think between the two of you, you've done quite enough today."_

"_We'll wait in the kitchen just in case." replied Kim as her worry turned to anger and started to build from the tone her mother used in her last statement._

_Looking into her husband's eyes and seeing the lost, scared, worry and confused look in them as he muttered softly, "I don't understand." over and over, she quickly said, "Don't try to talk James or say anything else. Don't nod or even move your head till after we get you to the hospital. Nothing major has been cut and I can stop the bleeding and close the wound with some butterfly bandaging to hold the edges together, but you can't move your neck or you'll just open it back up again. If you understand, blink twice."_

_After he blinked twice, she continued to try and reassure him saying, "I'm not going to allow anything else to happen today, except to make sure that you are alright. Nobody else is going to hurt you, or us in any way."_

_When she was finished, the bleeding had been stopped for the moment. The cut was incredibly clean so it had been easier to pull the edges together. James had recovered enough that she was able to help him over to the outdoor elevator that they had installed last year for his mother to take her directly from the garage to there back porch or deck, and sent him to down where she would then help him to the car. She then went into the kitchen thinking to end this thing with Ron and Kim till things cooled off and they could talk when leveler heads would prevail._

_It was in the kitchen that when her mother came in, that she and Kim had their argument ending with Kim smashing a coffee cup and Ann slapping her daughter._ L_eveler heads did not prevail that day._

As Ron's mind snapped back to the present, he felt the same anguish he felt that day as Ann's face blurred into her husband's and back again, complete with blood flowing from her neck. Screaming "NO! Not again!" he threw the sword away from him—toward the sofa where it embedded itself with a sickening thump. It would have easily gone all the way through it if not for the _tsuba_, or the guard, stopping it. As he sunk into himself, he continued mumbling "Not again" to himself as if it were a litany. No matter what the events or circumstances were before everything went to hell that day, he was the one responsible for punching their tickets. If he hadn't tried to prove himself, then James wouldn't have been cut. They might have gone a week before they started talking again, but it wouldn't have taken over a year.

He had buried these feelings over a year ago. Buried them deep. Buried them for Kim. She needed him then, needed him to be strong for her to keep her from drowning in her emotions. He had been wrong. Ann saw it. Saw right through him and she knew.

As his body dropped down to kneel on the floor, he knew he left himself open to anything Ann wanted to do to him. Hit him, slap him, kick him or even retrieve the sword and do to him what he almost did to James. He didn't care now because he deserved it.

Feeling the anguish wash over him like a wave, a wave that he'd been keeping Kim from slipping beneath over the past year, he allowed himself to sink below the surface hoping she wouldn't hate him too much and that she would now be able to keep her own head above the waters, now that she was back with her parents.

Just as he was about to let his mental eyelids close to the pain that was his reality, he felt hands grab him to try and pull him back from that place. Hands that were soft, strong and familiar all at the same time. And a voice that was crying and begging him for his forgiveness.

Part of his drowning mind noted that it seemed wrong to him that _Ann_ ask _him_ for forgiveness. What gave him the right, or ability, to forgive anyone when he was the one that could never be forgiven?

As part of him came back to the real world, he looked up and saw Kim's mother's tear streaked face pleading with him to forgive her for what she'd said and done, saying that she had to do it to prove it to herself that what had happened had been an accident that day. A terrible accident that wasn't his fault.

Not able to respond to such an idea, that it really had been an accident and that he wasn't entirely to blame, caused Ann to start calling for Kim to come and help her. She was there almost instantly, like she had been waiting for a starter's gun to sound before she sprinted into the room, trying to comfort and reassure him besides her mother. It wasn't till he heard Kim's angry words directed at her mother for what she'd said to him, that he responded.

"No!," his voice and body pleading with her. "No Kim. No more anger. Please."

When Kim fell silent from his request, after she saw how thoroughly shaken he was, Ron sat there taking several deep breaths before he looked up at Ann and he asked, with a little hope in his voice and heart that he had been wrong for over a year, "You'd forgive me for what happened? You believe me when I say it was an accident and that I never meant to hurt him that way?"

Taking a deep breath herself, trying to replace the air that she'd used begging him for forgiveness and to try and pause long enough to make sure her voice conveyed her own feelings now, she said, "Yes, I do. With all my heart, I forgive you Ron. I can only hope now that you can find it in your heart to forgive me, for the way I used to prove to myself that you weren't trying to hurt him."

Ron's mind and heart were both racing as he tried to wrap his mind around the concept to accept the forgiveness that Ann offered to him that he had denied himself all of this time. Yes, her words and actions had hurt him, but not nearly as much as the idea that he had tried to physically hurt James and that he himself couldn't ever be trusted again, had probably hurt her and her husband.

Taking Kim's hand and squeezing it, he looked Ann in the face and said, "How could I not forgive you, if you can find a way to forgive me?"

As she started to pull him into a hug, Ron stopped her, looking her in the eye. "One thing though," he said seriously, "you must never ever slap me again."

As she started to tear up again in guilt over that slap, he added, "I've been hit by a lot of people, from Shego to fully trained ninjas, but they can't hold a candle to that right arm of yours." he finished with atentative but familiar smile.

Half laughing, half crying they all hugged each other._Leave it to Ron to say the very thing that mom needed to hear. Forgiveness with a smile, _Kim thought to herself.

After a minute, Ron said, "I just hope that I don't have to go through this with James when I ask him to forgive me."

Suddenly he could hear a pin drop as even the storm outside fell quiet. Looking at his wife and her mother in confusion, he only saw half smiles as he realized he'd either said something inappropriate or there was something wrong that he didn't know about.

"We need to talk about that," said the two women at the same time.

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TBC

I'd like to thank all of the readers of this story for understanding why I used the terms I did in the previous and in this chapter, and for not filling the reviews or my PMs with flames, which I halfway expected to find. I felt that Ann had to get Ron mad to try and recreate the situation to find out for herself if there had been any _**intent **_on Ron's part, and that she had to do it quickly in case he figured out what she was doing. That would have spoiled whatever his real reactions would have been and left her with a small doubt in the back of her mind that might have never gone away.

As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, leave a comment. They let me know if you like it or not.


	7. Chapter 7

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.

The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

xxx

Time to say thank you to the people that have left reviews for the previous chapter.

CajunBear73, UnknownDescent,

temporaryinsanity91, Sentinel103, pcfreak30, Imyoshi, Beckman, Jimmy1201, ajw1970, and Shinzochi.

And again a special thanks goes out to temporaryinsanity91 for helping to shape and polish this chapter.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Previously

After a minute, Ron said, "I just hope that I don't have to go through this with James when I ask him to forgive me."

Suddenly he could hear a pin drop as even the storm outside fell quiet. Looking at his wife and her mother in confusion, he only saw half smiles as he realized he'd either said something inappropriate or there was something wrong that he didn't know about.

"We need to talk about that," said the two women at the same time.

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It took over an hour and a half before the small group would find themselves sitting calmly at the kitchen table sipping coffee. Most of that time had been spent with both Ann and Ron apologizing for what they had done to each other in the near and distant past. It was neither their habit or nature to build walls that would keep others out like they had. Their walls had built tall and thick over the past year, but when they found out that they had built them on the sands of misunderstandings and misconceptions of the other's actions or perceived inactions, the walls fell quickly. There was still a lot of rubble left to clear away, but the walls were down between mother-in-law and son-in-law.

Neither one had spoken to the other for over a year till this day and for over half a year these had been the legal tittles for the relationship to the other, but in their own minds they now thought of the other differently. For Ron, Ann was his other mother, just like she used to be. For Ann, son-in-law was far to long a name for him so she just thought of him as son. Funny how quickly the mind can accept new/old tittles for others and create a new mind set when pain is removed from the picture. A mindset that was only missing one person now that could lead to them becoming a family of friends once again.

When they informed him about the lost wedding invitation he could only shake his head. It was suppose to have been a way to repair their relationships but the way it ended up, it only widened the rift between them all and caused it take another six months plus for them to bridge the gap.

But when Kim told him that her father had left her mother, he just sat there, stunned. Of all things that Ron had ever thought about the man, this was way down at the bottom of the list. Kim went on as Ann handed him James's letter for him to read himself.

"I still can't believe he did that. I can't believe he would just up and walk out on you. I knew he was angry and ashamed of me for not being his little Kimmie Cub anymore, but..."

"What in heaven's name makes you think your father was ashamed of you Kim?" asked her mother caught totally off guard by that statement.

"I could tell it in his voice." Kim replied as she tried to prepare herself for talking about that time. "Right after he caught Ron and me," and here she paused to gather the courage to talk to her mother about it, "making love. Soon, after he dropped the baseball bat and ran out of the room, he started calling me, wanting me to come out so he could talk to me. I could tell then what it was he wanted to talk about. I felt so humiliated and mad at myself for not waiting that I couldn't face him and that's why Ron went out to talk to him. Because I couldn't."

"Kimberly." said Ann softly as she patted her daughter's hand. "I no more think your father capable of being 'ashamed,' of you, than I now think that Ron was actually trying to kill him with the sword. He talked about this when we were in counseling and you are right. He was angry and ashamed, but not of you. He was angry and ashamed of _himself_ and he wanted to ask you to forgive him."

"What?"

"Kim, he would have never walked in on you two like he did if he hadn't found the front door standing open. And when he heard the moaning coming from your bedroom after calling for you several times, he thought one of your old foes had finally gotten the better and...well, he thought you were being raped. That's why he went in with the baseball bat you keep by your door."

"The door was open? I thought he just let himself in with the key I gave you guys."

"The only time we ever took that key off of that key holder on the wall there was when you asked us to go over there to do something. We never carried it around with us and we never used it without you knowing about it first." Ann answered.

"Christ." said Ron after he looked up from the letter. "That was one of the things that he and I argued about at the house that day. Kim was mad and when I tried telling him that he was no longer welcome there when he snuck in like that, we started yelling at each other before I finished. I think all he heard was that he was no longer welcome there anymore."

After a pause, Ann added without trying to sound like she was accusing him, " That wasn't all you said to him then. What about when you told him that we didn't matter to Kim anymore and if he wasn't careful he wouldn't even be asked to give her away at her own wedding?"

Ron shook his head and closed his eyes not want to look at her as he tried to explain. "That wasn't exactly what I said and it sure wasn't the way it was meant. I was trying to warn him not to push to hard or that _might_ happen."

When he didn't continue, Ann asked, "And where did you get that idea from?"

His gaze fixed on a point on the table where he saw nothing and his prolonged silence told her she wasn't going to get an answer. At least from him.

Taking a deep breath, Kim said, "He got that idea from me, but that wasn't how I meant it either."

Ann sat there waiting for Kim or Ron to continue. Both were uncomfortable with discussing it, that much was clear, but Ann also knew that this was something she would have to let them tell in their own time. Pushing or provoking them would serve no purpose.

Finally Kim said, "Let me start at the beginning. We had some big breaks in some cases at Global Justice and we were able to wrap them up quickly that day so I decided to stop by Club Banana and meet up with Monique at the mall, but before I got there though, I saw Ron."

Ron said, still avoiding her gaze, "My mom needed my car for the day since her's was in the shop, a house sale that needed a bank rep to be there at the closing. I had an appointment at the jeweler's to pick something up so she dropped me off and I was going to just walk home when I ran into Kim."

"He wouldn't tell me why he was there, just why his mom had the car and he needed a ride home. I just thought is was a happy coincidence that we met. When I said daddy was going to stop by after he got off work, Ron wanted to talk to him about something and asked if he could wait at my house."

Ron looked up and into Ann's eyes as he said, "I wanted to talk to him about me stopping by that night to talk to the two of you. I was at the mall to pick up the engagement ring I special ordered for Kim when I asked her to marry me. It just came in that day. I wanted to show it to the two of you to get your blessing before I asked her, like I promised you I was going to do."

"The problem," said Kim as she picked up the story. "was that I've known Ron most of my life and I know when he's up to something. He was almost giddy like the cat that had the key to the aviary. He kept smiling and patting his pants pocket. When I parked the car, I pulled him into a hug and kiss and while he was distracted, I picked his pocket. Laughing at myself I turned to see what was making him act like a nervous little school girl, but when I saw what was in the box, I froze, unable to say anything."

"I tried to stop her," said Ron. "But when she saw what it was, she turned to look at me and her eyes were wide as she asked me if it was what she thought it was. I may have been annoyed with her at having spoiled my plans, but I could never be that way long. When I told her what it was that I wanted to talk to James about, she said...Well she said..."

When he couldn't go on, Kim said as her eyes started to fill with tears again, "I said that it didn't matter what you and daddy said. It was my decision on who I married or didn't marry and if you didn't agree, then we wouldn't invite you. I didn't care." Kim then reached out to take Ann's hand as the tears started to fall before saying, "But I knew that you guys would approve and that you loved him as much as I did, I thought it was a safe thing to say. I never meant it to hurt either you or daddy. Only to let Ron know how much I loved him and wanted to marry him."

"Let me guess."said Ann. "That was when you two decided to celebrate and you were both so excited that someone forgot to completely close the door."

"It was my idea to make love. I thought we'd closed the front door." said Kim in between sobs. "I thought we'd have plenty of time before daddy got there, but apparently I was wrong. I was wrong about some many things that day. It was my idea to call his cell phone when he left, but when it went to voice mail because he'd turned it off, I said some things I didn't mean. I was just so mad by that time. It was then my idea to rush over to try and talk things out with him." She paused for a moment as she added what she'd done and said up in her mind before saying, "I just screwed everything up. It was all my fault that it even got started. "

"No." interrupted Ron before she could break out crying again. "I misunderstood what you were saying to me and I had no right to say anything to your father about it. It was my fault he felt hurt and then left the way he did."

"Will you two stop it!" yelled Ann as she put her hand down on the table top to get their attention. She paused long enough to count to ten by twos before she said with more calm, "Stop being so noble and trying to take the blame for everything. Both of you. Everybody was at fault with nobody more than the other. It was like a set of dominoes put too close together. Take out one or two here or there and there still wasn't enough room between them to stop the chain reaction." After letting that set into their minds, she added, "It sounds like that day was more like Murphy's Law caught up to you two, caught up to all of us. Everything that could go wrong did and in a big way."

When neither Ron or Kim said anything, just sat there staring at her with a shocked look on their faces, Ann continued. "You screwed up." she said pointing at Kim. Then she pointed at Ron and said, "You screwed up, James screwed up and I screwed up. That day, we all forgot who we were and what the other people meant to us and hopefully still mean to us. We need to move past that day." and here she started to lose her calm as she said, "We need to forgive ourselves as well as others and get everyone back together and be the family we all wanted to be." She then lost her composure and broke into tears as she added. "And I want my husband back."

Kim was by her mother's side in seconds hugging her and trying to offer her love and support to her. Ron was only a few seconds behind Kim so both were comforting Ann with words, telling her that no matter what, they would find him and they would work things out.

When her mother calmed down, Kim turned to Ron and quietly asked, "Why would he just walk out on her? I don't understand."

Ann over heard her, but before she could say anything , Ron softly said, "I don't think he did it to hurt anybody Kim, especially your mother. I think he did it because he thought it was the right thing to do."

The look Kim gave her husband said only one thing. "Explain."

"His note is saying that he thinks he's responsible for everything that happened, just like we were doing. He thinks it was all his fault and I guess that after the wedding, he thought it would never get any better and that the best thing would be for him to disappear. That way we could all get on with our lives with him gone."

The look on Ann's face was one of dawning understanding. Kim's face showed something else.

"That is," she said before pausing to gather her thoughts. "the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Why would he think that abandoning mom would be a good thing?"

As all expression fell from Ron's face, he turned to look out the window of the kitchen at the late night sky, the rain and lightning having passed through the area for now, leaving only darkness, but before Kim could say anymore, her mother said, "He didn't abandon me. He just hasn't come back home to me. If he had abandoned me, then he would have stopped his paycheck from being deposited."

"Wait, what?" she asked but was more distracted by Ron's reaction.

"His paycheck, less one hundred dollars, is still being deposited into our joint account every two weeks, just like normal and he hasn't made any withdraws on it. He's still trying to take care of me." Ann said absentmindedly as she was now watching her newest son.

Kim would digest that information about what her father was doing later, when she had more time. Right now she had the feeling that she was once again at a point where her life was in the balance, just like that day. Just as she was getting things straightened out, they felt like they were going to collapse again.

"Ron?" she called his name and got no response as she thought she saw his eyes start to water.

"Ron, you wouldn't have left me would you? Then or now?" she asked him as a fear squeezed her heart and wouldn't let go. She moved closer to him and put her hand so it rested lightly on his shoulder.

Her touch broke his concentration as he stared at the dark nothingness outside, causing him to close his eyes. She saw a single tear run down his cheek before he turned to face her and she could see pain in his eyes.

"I told you back in high school that I wouldn't try and hold you back, Kim." he slowly and softly said. "I meant it then and I still mean it now." He took a deep but shaky breath before he continued. "But if I thought that I was keeping you from getting back together with your family over what I did that day, if I thought I was a crutch that you no longer needed and I was keeping you from walking again, if I thought I was hurting you by staying with you, then yeah. I would have left you."

Stoking his cheek with the back of her hand she said, "You also said that you couldn't live without me that same day."

Taking her fingers in his hand, he kissed them and said, "There's a difference between 'living' and 'living,' Kim."

"Ron, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said 'stupid.' I should have said I don't understand about..."

He interrupter her saying, "It's okay Kim. Let's just call it a 'man thing' and let it go at that."

He then turned back to looking out the window, not sure how his relationship with the woman he loved would be now, now that he had revealed this dark secret about what his plans might have been concerning her, as she looked away from him not sure of her own feelings now. Knowing that he would have left her without even talking to her about it had shaken her to her very core.

After Ann thought that their silence had gone on long enough, she gently said to them, "Kids. It's late and I think we've all experienced and learned a lot tonight. Walls have fallen down but there's still a lot of clean up to do, so why don't we all go to bed and try and let things settle? We can start things fresh again tomorrow. We still have to finish up what we all started and we can make some plans then about finding James too."

Kim and Ann had already discussed her spending the night, but as they neared the front door, with his voice sounding like he'd just lost his best friend, Ron said, "Kim, just give me the car keys and I'll head home. You probably want some time to think about..."

"No Ronald." said Ann with her voice leaving no room for doubt. "It's been to long since a man and his wife have slept in the same bed in this house. You are going to spend the night here with your wife and that's that. Am I understood?"

"But I don't even have anything clean to wear to bed. Beside Kim will need to think..."

"That right! Kim will need to think. And talk. And she won't be able to do that unless you're here. Now I've got a brand new pair of men's pajamas that should fit you, so head upstairs now, unless you want to run the risk of undoing all of the good that's been done today."

Shaking his head, he turned to start up the stairs, but before he turned all the way around, Ann grabbed him and pulled him into a hug and whispered, "Good night son. And even if she didn't understand what you said about James's letter, I did. Thank you."

She noticed a slight smile on his face as he then headed up to the guest room.

As the two women followed him up stairs and after she was sure that Ron had gone into the guest room, Ann asked Kim to follow her to her bedroom for that pair of pajamas for Ron. Leaving the door open, Ann opened a drawer and got them out to hand them to her daughter, but as their hands were close, Ann took Kim and asked, "May I pass on a piece of motherly advice?"

Kim chuckled as she said, "Mom we had that talk about the birds and the bees a long time ago, about the same time that I started having my period."

"This one is more important Kim. Has Ron been there for you, over the past year?"

With a slight waver to her voice, Kim said, "Yes. Yes he has. I would have never made it if it hadn't been for him. I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't been there."

Ann paused as she formed her next question. "Have you been there for him?"

Caught a little by surprise, Kim asked in a confused voice, "What do you mean mom? Other than the problem with you and daddy, Ron hasn't had any..."

Ann decided to test an idea that she was afraid might have been a problem for the two. "How was your honeymoon Kim?"

Suddenly feeling defensive about the problem with her marriage, Kim tried to side step the question and answered. "I told you we didn't go on a honeymoon. The time wasn't right and..."

"Okay, Kim. How was your wedding night then?"

There. The question was out in the open and waiting to be answered. When no answer came and Kim refused to even look at her mother, Ann had her answer.

When Ann thought Kim was going to start crying, she said, "That's why this talk is more important than the one about the birds and the bees." Taking her daughter and sitting her down on the foot of the bed so they could talk and so Ann had a clear view of the hallway, she said, "Kim, over a year ago, I forgot something. Something that may have cost me my marriage and I'd like to tell you about it so you don't make the same mistake."

Kim just gave Ann a silent nod telling her she had her attention. "Your father has always been a pillar of strength to me. He was able to be there when I needed him, be strong when I needed him to back me up and feeling comfortable with letting me be just as strong as he was without feeling threatened by it. And I always did the same for him. On that day that you and I had our falling out, the day I had to rush him to the hospital, I needed him and in his own way, he was there for me. He was there for me when I needed him to be, up till the day he left. What I forgot, after we came home from getting his stitches, was that he was allowed to be weak at times and sometimes he needed me to be there for him. True. I took care of him, but it was like a Doctor / patient kind of thing and not like a husband / wife thing. He needed me, but I was to caught up in what_ I _needed at the time and I forgot to give anything back to the man I married. After your wedding, when I asked him to move back into our bedroom, I was actually thinking more of myself. I assumed that since he was so strong, he would stay that way. I was wrong." She now looked directly into Kim's eyes as she said, "Don't make the same mistake that I made Kim. Ron's hurting and he needs you. Now more than ever. He's been so worried about you and us, that he may not even know how badly he is hurt, especially since he just bared his soul to you and told you what he would be willing to do for you. Just to make sure you would be better off. And you told him that that idea was stupid."

"But I wouldn't be better off Mother! I'd be without him!" Kim almost yelled as she felt a sudden panic over the idea of him leaving her. "And you've given me a chance to see how being without daddy has affected you. What would being without Ron have done to me? Would I have started staying at home all the time? Started drinking to ease the pain? What would it have done to me Mother?"

Her mother was ready for the question. He'd helped her to see things from a different perspective so far as James was concerned so she was ready with an answer far sooner than Kim was expecting.

"What would it have done to Ronald, Kim?" she answered in a calm flat voice. "What would it have done to him?"

Kim's mind froze as she remembered their words:_ "You also said that you couldn't live without me that same day." "There's a difference between 'living' and 'living,' Kim." _

Feeling empty as she realized that she'd only been thinking about herself and not about her husband, it suddenly dawned on her what would have happened to him. It would have killed him. Or it would have killed the part inside him that makes him who he is.

As her daughter started to shake from the shock of her epiphany of what might have happened out of his love for her. Ann pulled her back into a motherly hug as she heard Kim mutter, "What am I going to do?"

Wishing she could go back in time so she could have followed the advice she was about to give her daughter, Ann said, "The past is in the past, Kim. Right now, this moment, this night is what's important. You two are so much strong together than when you are apart, what do you think you should do? What do you want to do?"

The answer came quickly to Kim's mind and heart. Sniffling back her weakness so she could be strong for her husband, she said, "I need to go and talk with my husband and I need to be his best friend again. I need to be there and be strong for him and help him like he's been there and helped me since Pre K. And I need to comfort him and he needs to comfort me. Like we haven't done in over a year."

"See? That wasn't such a hard question to answer now was it?" Ann said with a smile on her face.

Hugging her mother tightly as she held back her tears, Kim whispered in her ear, "Thank you Mommy."

Kim pulled the door closed behind her as she left and Ann waited till after she heard the guest room door open and close again before she stood up and started to get ready for bed since they would have a lot to do tomorrow. She had decided that she needed to break the habit she'd formed of having a nightcap to help her sleep. Something she could really use at that moment.

As she laid there in the bed staring up at the ceiling trying to will herself to go to sleep, she thought she heard an old familiar rhythm of noise coming from somewhere inside the house. The noise brought a brief smile to her lips as she rolled on her side so she wouldn't be eavesdropping on them. A little bit more of the pain she felt melted away as she now stared at the empty spot besides her. Reaching out her hand to that spot to remember him being there and feeling his absence, she knew what it would take to make the rest of it melt away.

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

_**Flashback to Kim calling her father's Cell Phone that day.)**_

"_Damn it!" she exclaimed to Ron as her own mounting frustration came out. "It went directly to voice mail. He must have sent it there or turned it off. 'Daddy, pick up. (pause) Pick Up The Damn Phone! (pause) Alright then. I don't know what you meant by telling Ron that he is no longer welcome at your house, but understand this, if he's not welcome there, then neither am I and you can go to hell!"_

_Shocked at what she just heard herself say to her father, her anger quickly dissipated and she continued in a much calmer voice, one of a scared daughter trying to talk with her father. "Daddy, I'm sorry I said that. I didn't mean it. Look we had a big misunderstanding here today and (pause) Ron and I are going to come over and try and fix this before it gets blown out of shape. We'll be by in about an hour." Before she hung up, she added, "I love you."_

_James was listening to the voice mail at his home, an hour later, hurt and anger growing, putting more pressure in his chest than a pressure cooker. _

"_...but understand this, if he's not welcome there, then neither am I and you can go to hell!" came her furious voice._

_Immediately __pushing the DELETE button and closing the phone, his hurt and anger somehow adding his physical strength, he flung it as hard as he could, where it hit one of the small boulders that they had as a part of the back yard landscape. It hit with enough force to not only shatter the case, but the chip as well. His anger and hurt not only return but doubled. He wasn't sure who he was angry at, but he knew he should stay out there by himself till he calmed down again or he might vent it on someone, whether he wanted to or not. It was then that Ron Stoppable stepped through the door from the kitchen and out onto the back deck. _

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TBC

As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, PM me or put it in a review.

Please review. There is always room for improvement and nothing is written in stone.

Stone has no check smeller.


	8. Chapter 8 Methiolate

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.

The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

Xxx

A Special thanks to Temporaryinsanity91 for not only Beta reading this chapter, as she has most of them, but for helping me by writing an interlude with James Possible and his mental and physical state of being. It can be found in her story list, **To Build A Home**.

Time to say thank you to the people that have left reviews for the previous chapter.

Jimmy1201, CajunBear73, Sentinel103, ajw1970, UnknownDescent, Beckman, temporaryinsanity91, Shinzochi and krikanalo.

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Previously

Kim pulled the door closed behind her as she left and Ann waited till after she heard the guest room door open and close again before she stood up and started to get ready for bed since they would have a lot to do tomorrow and she was breaking the habit she'd formed of having a nightcap to help her sleep. As she laid there in the bed staring up at the ceiling trying to will herself to go to sleep, she thought she heard an old familiar rhythm of noise coming from somewhere inside the house. The noise brought a brief smile to her lips as she rolled on her side so she wouldn't be eavesdropping on them. A little bit more of the pain she felt melted away as she now stared at the empty spot besides her and knew what it would take to make the rest of it melt away too.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

She made her way to the guest room door after pulling her mother's closed behind her. She thought it strange not only that her mother had made sure to leave her door open while they were talking, but that she had looked several time through it and down the hall. Almost like she was expecting something, but the only thing she could have seen was the door that Kim now stood in front of.

Over the past year, she'd spent most of her time trying to relive the events surrounding her parents and herself on that day. Turning her focus more to Ron and herself she saw that her mother was right. After that first day when he was ready to take all the blame thinking that would allow her to return to her family, if she broke out in tears, he was there to hold her till she cried herself out. If she sunk into a deep depression, he was there to make sure she would eat enough to stay healthy and help pull her out of it. When she needed someone to talk to, someone to vent at or just someone to hold her, he was there. He'd made that deal to let Bueno Nacho use his name so there he could stay with her with no financial worries. He urged her to go back to work as soon as she was able so it would take her mind off the problems. She couldn't do field work till she could pass her psych evaluation and just not fail it. It was in filing and sorting old old cases, but once she applied herself to the job, she'd been able to close two cases without even leaving the facilities.

And who had prepared a celebration dinner when she closed each one of them?

Whenever she needed something, without her saying anything about it, he was there offering. Whenever he'd needed anything, she never knew it. _S_he been the one that was taking and not giving. He'd been the one giving, unwilling to ask for anything. Even to make love. Anytime they'd tried, memories of her father's shocked face flashed in her mind killed any desire in her. She'd tried to block it out of her mind for her husband, but that also showed as a lack of desire to him. He always knew when she did this and would stop. He'd tell her he hadn't married her for the sex, but when she was ready, truly ready, he'd be ready too.

Tonight she'd seen a glimpse of what he'd tried to bury deep inside him since that day when her mother found out the truth about the sword. It'd taken both of the ladies to bring him back, but she now knew he only re-buried it when he made the joke about how hard Ann could hit and when he tried to explain her father's reasoning in the letter to her, she said she thought it was stupid.

Ron had given her love, warmth, support and a shoulder to cry on without question or reservation. He could be supportive without smothering, nurturing without babying, encouraging without being pushy. He never asked for anything in return, he just wanted to help.

As she quietly opened the door to talk to her husband, two words filled her mind. Two words that burned in her to try and make the past year up to him, her best friend in the world, her soul mate.

"My turn."

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She slipped into the room as quietly as she could, wanting to get a brief idea of how he was doing before they talked. Ron was busy pacing in the room not taking any notice of her.

_Not noticing_ was far better than _ignoring_, she thought to herself as a part of her was crying about what she had to do. His pacing looked like an animal seeking escape to avoid the slaughter. Could that have been why her mother had left the door open? To watch and make sure he didn't try to leave?

He had already turned down the bed, but he had also moved a couple pillows to the reclining chair near the bed. That made it obvious that either he didn't want to sleep with her or that he didn't expect her to want to sleep with him.

When she called his name, his startled reaction almost reminded her of the reaction they used to get from Dr Drakken when they showed up. Sort of a surprised, shock mixed with a little bit of fear look. She almost expected him to shout, "Kim Possible?!" But that's not what he said. "Kim." with a more resigned tone, as if he'd met death and given it a name. The name of his wife.

Looking at the floor as she moved through the room for fear of letting him see her face, she moved over to him and a silence fell between them. A thin, fragile silence as if waiting for the other shoe to fall or waiting for the sound of a body to hit the ground after falling down a bottomless well. Finally as she handed him the pajamas and said, "We need to talk." The irreversible four words that once uttered, sounded the herald for "The End of Days" for any relationship.

As he sat down in the chair, she could almost hear his life leave his body as he exhaled, as she sat down on the bed facing him. Crossing her arms across her chest to hug herself and holding her knees together, she stared at the floor in front of his feet as she said his name.

"Ron. This isn't working. I can see now that we made a mistake, a big mistake when we got married. It was for the totally wrong reason and we've been paying for it ever since." She knew this was killing him, as it was her, but it had to be done. "I think it best that after tonight we leave and go our separate ways and never look back."

By the smallest thread imaginable, he held his world together. He'd thought about his moment for over a year. Thought about it and even planned on it, but now that it was here, it didn't cut down the pain. The main difference was that he always thought _he_ would have been the one to end it. To bring the masquerade to an end by cutting her lose to give her a chance of having a life, much the same way her father had done to her mother.

No matter how much he had thought about this event in the past, he'd never been able to move past it. What was he going to do now once he'd gathered his few belongings and left. Any and all cash from the Bueno Nacho Corporation was automatically deposited into the joint account he had with Kim so she would never need worry about money. He could never go back to Yamanouchi, that much was certain. Not after his failure to end this family dispute, especially one that he had created using the Lotus Blade. He had cast dishonor and shame on _it_ as well as himself that day. How could he go back there?

He wanted to tell her how sorry he was for everything, that he still loved her, but he couldn't think anymore. His soul felt so hollow. All he could do was stare at her feet, trying to gather the strength to say something at least.

"...So yeah," Kim said drawing him back to the here and now. "We'll get up, have breakfast and talk about what to do to find my father, turn the matter over to Global Justice and after they or we get it all straightened out, we can end it. I know I promised you I'd do my best to get back with the folks, but now that I've seen how things are, what's the point? Mom blames me for everything so I can't see any reason to make her life more miserable than it already is by sticking around and reminding her of it every time she sees me."

Looking at her he could see the sadness and regret on her face as she outlined the last night of their...

"Wait. What?"

"I tried Ron, I really did, but it's clear that she thinks the whole thing was my fault, even though I can't say that I blame her."

"What are you talking about Kim?"asked a very confused Ron. "She said we all screwed up. We all screwed up and it was all our faults, all of us with none being more than the other. Like the dominoes and a chain reaction thingie. Murray's law and, and.."

"Come on Ron, she doesn't believe that. She only said it to try and make us feel better so we'd help find daddy for her."

"But Kim."

"Ron," she started as she counted things off on her fingers. "She knows now that I'm the reason you didn't ask their permission about marrying me first. She knows now it was my idea to make love before daddy got there thinking we had plenty of time. It could have been my fault the door didn't get closed. She knew that I refused to talk to him after he found us. She heard about the first part of that voice mail I left him. I should have known he would have only listened to the first part when I told him to go to hell. She knew it was me that want to rush right over there to..."

"Alright Kim, enough." Ron said as he interrupted her with a firm voice of his own. "I don't know why you suddenly decided to throw a pity party for yourself. Yes you did those things, but I did things, your father did things and yes. Even your mother did some thing that all added to the mess, but like she said we need to get over it. We need to let it go so we can move on and try and have a normal family relationship again."

"No one is more to blame than the other," he said when she didn't say anything. "She forgave me, I forgave her, she forgave you and you forgave her so all we need to do is get your father to join in and all will be forgiven. We all need to stop crying over spilt milk and you can be happy again."

She stared at him for a minute as he waited for a response from her. Finally she said, "Ron, you don't believe what you just said so why should I?"

"Kim, I do believe it! With all my heart, I believe it. Why won't you?"

She moved so that she was kneeling at his feet with her elbow resting on his knees, she looked into his eyes and said, "Prove it to me. Prove you believe it."

Thrown off by what she said as well as her position, he asked, "What? How?"

Talking his hands in her's and with a little urgency in her voice she said, "Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for what happened that day with daddy."

Not understand what she was saying, he asked, "Do what?"

"Ron. I saw where you were when mom called me into the living room. You were back on the back deck that day, weren't you?" the last part was a statement, not a question.

He swallowed hard. "Kim...I..."

"I know that's where you were Ron because I was there for a month after I moved out of that house. I was there sinking in quicksand till someone I love very much, someone that had been keeping me from sinking all the way under managed to pull me out. I was still so covered in the muck that I didn't notice that you were still stuck in it. Not until tonight, when mom called me in."

"We need to move past it Ron. Like you told me, spilt milk."

"I spilled more than just milk that day Kim."

There it was. His moment was when he saw James bleeding because of something he did and he was stuck on it and couldn't or wouldn't let go.

_**That day.**_

"_And one more thing young..." It was then that her father turned and almost impaled himself on the sword, but he did cut himself ____enough that blood ran from the cut on his throat. As James's hand came up to staunch the flow, the two men stared at each other with looks of shock on their faces. As James sank down to his knees, Ron thought the look of shock on his face was replaced by a look of hurt and of betrayal, like having been betrayed by someone you trusted with your life. It was that look that James gave Ron that caused him to freeze. That unfathomable look that screamed, "I don't understand. How could you?"_

_The room and Kim disappeared_ form his sight, only to be replaced by the vision of James's face with that look as he held the side of his throat to staunch the flow of blood. He didn't even hear Kim softly calling his name as he stared into James eyes.

When the vision faded enough that he was back in the here and now, he was looking at Kim's face, full of concern and worry. Her eyes were watering as she asked, "Did you mean to hurt him then Ron? Is that why you called the Lotus Blade to you?"

"Oh God No Kim!"

"Then it was an _accident _Ron. It just happened without any intent or meaning. It just happened."

"But Kim, I'm suppose to be the _Chosen One_. I'm suppose to be the example for others. I'm not suppose to be..."

"Human?" she asked as she completed his statement. "Everybody has accidents Ron. I don't care if it's a fender bender, cutting yourself shaving—or..." she paused for a moment, "hurting someone when you didn't mean to."

When he didn't answer, she continued. "My first and best friend was a boy that grew up to be a man and I fell in love with that man. I wanted to and I married that man. Not someone that I thought was the _Chosen One_, perfect in every way, but a man that was human and humans make mistakes. Didn't Sensei once say that the road to knowledge is paved with man's mistakes? Mankind or a man's mistakes?"

It was too close. Ann dug it up earlier, but he'd been able to bury it quickly again with his joke. But he hadn't had enough time to bury it deep enough. It was still too close to the surface and now Kim had full uncovered it for both of them to see it.

Kim could tell from the tears in his eyes that he refused to let fall that he was close, so close to letting go, but he still needed a little help. Raising herself up as high as she could without standing, she gently put her arms around him and hugged him as she said, "It's alright Ron. I'm here and I forgive you. And I know daddy would too. He loves you."

Kim couldn't see the first tears fall from his eyes. She couldn't since he had his head on her shoulder, but she did feel them fall on her neck and with each tear she felt, she hugged him even tighter till she couldn't hug any tighter. As the individual tears turn into a stream, his hands came up to hug her back, maybe to hold on to her and as the stream turned into a river, he was holding on to her for dear life. She held his head as she gave him what he'd needed for the past year without knowing it. Comfort and forgiveness.

When it was over and he didn't have anything left behind the damn that he'd built and she been able to release it, he was exhausted. So was she.

When she thought it was over she slowly pulled back and with her own face as puffy and swollen from her own tears as his was, she gave him a slight smile as she asked, "Are you alright now?"

His answering smile was watery. "Yeah I think so. And thank you."

"I'm only returning a year old favor." Then she added, "With interest."

Slowly standing up, she held onto his right hand and waited for him to look up at her before she said, "I think it's time you came to bed Ron."

"I don't think I could sleep now Kim. Why don't you go ahead and..."

"I'm not asking you to come to bed to sleep Ron," she said as she pulled him to his feet.

"Kim, I..."

"We've both had some old wounds opened up tonight and I think we need to put some Methiolate on them to make sure they heal properly."

"But what about...?"

"Ron." She knew that he could be hardheaded and stubborn as they come at times. She also knew his biggest weakness, or sometimes it was his biggest strength. "I _need_ this to happen. I think we both _need_ this to happen so we can forgive ourselves as well as each other, and know that we have done that. It may not be the best reason to make love, but right now it seems like a pretty damn good one to me."

He was studying her, his hand reaching up to her face. "Please," she whispered, and with a slight smile, he stood and followed her to the bed. After all, how could he refuse her?

When they finally drifted off to sleep in each others arms after their own emotional and physical needs were met and satisfied by the other, they both had smiles on their faces and for the first time in over a year, they were both happy.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

_TBC_

_As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, PM me or put it in a review._

_Please review. There is always room for improvement and nothing is written in stone. _

_Stone has no check smeller._


	9. Chapter 9 James Interlude

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.

The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

A Special thanks to Temporaryinsanity91 for not only Beta reading as she has most of the chapters in this story, but for helping me by writing this interlude with James Possible and his mental and physical state of being. It can be found in her story list, **To Build A Home**. She wanted me to post it here as well. I agreed, but I said I would await a few days, so if you want to leave a review for this chapter, please go to her original post.

**The song in this song-fic is called _To Build A Home,_ and it's by The Cinematic Orchestra, featuring Patrick Watson. Check it out at www dot youtube dot com /watch?v=oUFJJNQGwhk. **

**Chapter 7.5: To Build A Home**

Her face was still in his mind when he opened his eyes. Rain was pouring outside the window of the tiny space, but he barely registered it, or the rumbling thunder and flashing, angry lightning that accompanied. When he was little, his mother always told him that when it rained, it was because God wanted to clean the world. Now as a scientists he realized that that actually had some value; rain helped clear the pollen and pollution from the air, essentially cleaning the sky. The bed felt oddly cold and uncomfortable like it always did.

He turned on to his side, and tears slipped from his eyes. It was the first time he'd slept more than two hours in... days. His mind was tired and his heart was tired. This place was bare and dusty, and he shivered. A year ago, at this time, she would be pouring him coffee while he read the _Examiner. _She would kiss his cheek, and he'd look into her eyes and see her love, and he'd smile his thanks. Then he would look out the curtain-framed window at the morning sunshine. He longed to be by her side again. He longed for her smiles and her caresses, and the carefree voices of his children. He wished he could go back to how things used to be.

_There is a house built out of the stone_

_Wooden floors, walls and window sills_

_Tables and chairs worn by all of the dust_

_This is a place that I don't feel alone_

_This is a place that I call my home_

All he deserved was...

"_I'll hate you forever! I hope you burn in hell!"_

He shook his head, dazedly trying to dispel his depressing thoughts, only to be startled to see _her. _She was wearing her lab coat, but she was barefoot. Her eyes were sad, their vibrant teal-blue color dull. He reached for her but she turned away. His shoulders slumped. When he looked up again, she was gone, and the window wasn't the window from before. It was the small, dingy kitchen window that he was now accustomed to.

_And I built a home_

_For you_

_For me_

_Until it disappeared_

_From me_

_From you_

He poured his coffee, black and hot, bitter and poorly brewed, but he didn't care. Reaching into the cabinet for a small bottle, he shook out two pills and downed them with the coffee. He stared at the bottle a moment, then shook out one more.

Making his way to the door, he tripped. His mug, which he'd taken from the set in the kitchen in a fit of nostalgia the day he left Ann, crashed to the ground and shattered; he landed ungracefully near the shards.

He could hear his daughter screaming, and suddenly blows from a bat were raining down on him, causing him to bleed. He hunched against them, trying to protect his head and body as he curled into a ball. She was so angry. She hated him. He peeked around his arm and saw Ron's dead body. Ron, the little boy that he watched grow, that played in their garden because his had a gnome he was afraid of, watched his baby girl's back as she went on her missions, and eventually became her lover and husband, lay dead on the ground because of him, his blood pooling around his head and pouring from his nose and lips.

He hated himself even more as he waited for the inevitable moment when his daughter wished for his death. He bit his lip so hard he drew blood so that he wouldn't scream, begging his daughter for any shred of mercy.

Then, as she started to swing the bat at his head to end it, she stopped and looked down at him, the blood on her sneering face making her look like something out of a horror movie."No," she jeered at him, her lip curling in a demeaning grin, "I'll give you a chance to end this yourself. Let's see if you're at least man enough to do that."

_And now, it's time_

_To live_

_And time_

_To die_

He'd had this waking nightmare a million times. Each time was more debilitating than the last. He did what he always did then. Pulling out his lap top, he opened his video-diary program and started recording a new entry. He'd done hundreds of videos, addressed to different members of his family; this time, it was for his daughter.

"Kimmie," he choked out. "Kimmie, I... God I love you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wish I could change what I did—what we said. I wish we could take it back. I..." he stopped, trying to control his tears and his voice. Drawing a calming breath, he continued.

"When you were six, you and Ronald were playing in the back yard, and you kicked your ball into a tree in the neighbor's yard. You, of course, went to go get it, but you only got as far as the fence before you were too scared to continue and too scared to go back down. You were... screaming for me," he whispered, "and finally I got you to jump into my arms so that you would be safe." He swallowed and looked away from the camera. "You trusted me enough to jump back then. Now..."

_I'm in the garden where we planted the seeds_

_There is a tree as old as me_

"The good old days, you know? When you were young and innocent... and when I was your protector, and when I was your best guy. I remember those days a lot. They keep me from losing my mind." _If only she knew,_ he snorted to himself. "You are still the light of my eyes," he whispered. "I still love you more than any dad ever loved his little girl. You'll always be my sunshine, my Kimmie-cub, my baby girl. No matter what we said the last time I... saw you.

"You know, that wasn't the first time I'd been up there, to get your ball down. I'd been up there before. I took a picture of your mom sunbathing on the deck from up there. She looked so peaceful and happy...

I hope that... now that I'm gone... you guys can be happy without me. I hope that, now that I'm gone, that _damn, cursed _day will be the last time I ever failed you. I... really love you. I hope that you know that, even if you hate me now."

_By the cracks of his skin I climbed to the top_

_I climbed the tree to see the world_

"That day you jumped into my arms, it'll always be my favorite memory of you, because you held on to me like I was the only person that could ever save you. After you... after you left with Ron... you were so angry... and we said all those things... your mother and I had such a hard time. I failed her all the time. I need you to know that I... I really did try. I really did try," he whispered as sobs shook his body.

_When a gust of wind came to blow me down_

_I held on as tightly as you held on me_

_Held on as tightly as you held on me_

"I love you so much baby girl... everything good that I've ever been, everything good that I've ever done, it's all been because I love you, and your mom, and your brothers... and Ron. I love you all."

_And I built a home_

_For you_

_For me_

_Until it disappeared_

_From you_

_From me_

_And now, it's time_

_To live_

_And time_

_To die  
_

xxxxxxxxxxxx

_TBC_

_As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, PM me or put it in a review._

_Please review. There is always room for improvement and nothing is written in stone. _

_Stone has no check smeller._


	10. Chapter 10

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.

The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

xxx

A Special thanks to Temporaryinsanity91 for not only Beta reading this chapter, more like editing it, as she has most of them, but for helping me by writing an interlude with James Possible and his mental and physical state of being. It can be found in her story list, **To Build A Home**.

Time to say thank you to the people that have left reviews for chapter 8.

Krikanalo, Beckman, UnknownDescent, CajunBear73, ajw1970, Sentinel103, and Shinzochi .

As well assaying thank you to the people that have left reviews for chapter 9, written by Temporaryinsanity91.

UnknownDescent, krikanalo, Shinzochi, Beckman and CajunBear73.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Previously

"I'm not asking you to come to bed to sleep Ron," she said as she pulled him to his feet.

"Kim, I..."

"We've both had some old wounds opened up tonight and I think we need to put some Methiolate on them to make sure they heal properly."

"But what about...?"

"Ron." She knew that he could be hardheaded and stubborn as they come at times. She also knew his biggest weakness, or sometimes it was his biggest strength. "I___need _this to happen. I think we both___need _this to happen so we can forgive ourselves as well as each other, and know that we have done that. It may not be the best reason to make love, but right now it seems like a pretty damn good one to me."

He was studying her, his hand reaching up to her face. "Please," she whispered, and with a slight smile, he stood and followed her to the bed. After all, how could he refuse her?

When they finally drifted off to sleep in each others arms after their own emotional and physical needs were met and satisfied by the other, they both had smiles on their faces and for the first time in over a year, they were both happy.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

As she made her way to the kitchen to start making a breakfast, Ann thought is was almost funny how quickly some old habits came back. She knew she had eggs and the smoked turkey strips (that her family had been eating instead of bacon ever since she found out that Ron was Jewish) should still be good. Fresh orange juice would be a no show at the table though. She hadn't bothered since, well since James left.

The guest room door was still closed and she didn't want to bother them just yet. It wasn't as if she'd been trying to eaves drop on them last night, but she'd over heard raised voices and crying. When she heard the sounds of a young couple making up in that special way, she was able to relax and finally drift off to sleep. When she woke up, she found herself hugging one of his pillows and found that she had something this morning that she hadn't had in a long time: hope.

As soon as she entered the kitchen, she went over to a cabinet and after opening it, she found herself staring at what was in it. She was going to have to get rid of a few new habits she'd gotten use to also. Inside the cabinet was a full bottle of gin waiting to be opened, since she'd finished off the other one yesterday. She didn't know how long she stood there fighting the temptation to get a quick one just to start her day. Finally she closed the door and said, "No. Not again."

As she turned to the cabinet to get the coffee down, she saw her daughter standing in the doorway.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to see that you are a very special woman, Ann Possible, and I am so glad to have you back in my life." With a bright smile, she moved swiftly to embrace her mother before saying, "Have I ever told you how proud I am of you?"

"It's been a while now Kim," she smiled back to her daughter as she patting her back. "Just remind me of that when my hands start shaking and I start looking at that cabinet again."

"So not a problem, Mom." she replied with a winning smile.

"So your _talk_ with Ron went well last night." Anne smirked, her statement leaving no room for doubt as she proceed to make a fresh pot of coffee. "And where is Ron?"

"He's taking a shower, then he's going to run back to our place and get me some clothes to wear to the Space Center. I think I can get us an appointment with Dr. Wong for this afternoon to talk to daddy," she said as she sat down at the table to wait fir the coffee to finish. And what makes you so sure our talk went well?"

"Three things dear." She opened the refrigerator to get what she needed to make breakfast. "One, the smile on your face. I haven't seen that look since Ron brought you home from your Senior Prom. Two, the noises that I couldn't help but hear after the loud voices stopped."

Kim's face flamed in embarrassment and she grimaced. "And what was number three?" she asked sheepishly.

"The same noises that woke me up around 3:00 AM," her mother replied with a smile that matched the one Kim had had.

"Mom, I'm sorry about that."

The smile fell from face as she pointed her finger at Kim to chastise her. "No," she said sternly, "don't you ever apologize for showing your how much you love one another in the privacy of the bedroom, especially when it's what you both very much needed." She returned to getting a frying pan down to put on the stove before she added, "Besides, it was nice to have some love in the house again after so long."

"I guess it was just as well that Daddy didn't hear us then."

Ann turned and looked at her daughter for a few seconds before she came over and sat down beside her and leaned in close. "Kim, your father and I were pretty sure you and Ron were sexually active months before that day."

"What?!"

Ann leaned in closer as she started to explain. "One time when you came over for dinner and you brought some laundry to do while we ate, you left some things that we thought you'd need."

"You went though my clothes?" Kim asked with horror.

"No!" Ann answered, also mildly horrified. "Your father had an early launch scheduled the next day so he was going to stop by as he went into work and put your laundry in your car for you to find. When he got there it was still dark, but he noticed that someone else's car was also in the driveway and all the lights were out in the house."

Kim's face reddened at the memory about that first night Ron spent the night there. Her first thought was that her father had been spying on her, but she quickly dismissed that idea since it was just a fluke happenstance. They'd never tried to hide anything but somehow it wasn't a subject that just came up in normal conversation.

"I didn't know that," Kim admitted. "You guys never said anything or asked about it."

Ann leaned back in the chair saying, "It wasn't any of our business dear. You and Ron were both adults and you were only doing what two people in love would do. The only thing that worried either your father or me was if you were being careful. We were concerned that an unwanted pregnancy could put to big a burden on you two before you were ready for it and if you recall, we did have a conversation about a couple of days later about if the pill was still relieving your cramping that came with that time of the month."

"I remember mom. I didn't understand _why_ we were having that talk, but I do remember it. And I remember telling you it was and that I was still using it."

Kim's face took on a strange look all of a sudden, but before Ann could comment on it, Ron walked in still trying to finish drying his hair. "Good morning ladies."

He bent down kiss his wife. "Morning, Doctor Wife." he whispered into her skin, earning another kiss from a now smiling Kim as she return his greeting. Straightening, he turned toward his mother-in-law. "Good morning Mrs Doctor P." It was then that he remembered what she had said to him about calling her that last night. The smile disappeared and all emotion drained from his face as Ann stood up, moved closer to him and kissed him on the same cheek that she'd slapped last night before she said, "Good morning...son."

She turned to walk back to the coffee maker to pour a cup for all of them when Ron spoke up, a crooked grin on his lips. "Let me rephrase that then. Good morning ...mother."

With her back to them, they both saw her step falter a little, but she regained herself and said with a little warble to her voice, "Have a seat Ron and I'll pour you a cup of coffee."

Kim got up and after opening the cabinet, got out the cup they had bought for Ron the day before. She also retrieved the two cups she and her mother had used last night from the drainer.

After all three had sat down and gotten their first sip of coffee, they started discussing the plan for the day. Kim had planned for her and her mother to go to the Space Center in hopes of seeing her father, while Ron went to the post office where they had mailed the wedding invitations so many months ago in hopes of tracking down the one that went missing. Even though Ann had said it wasn't important, that she believed them when they said it was sent, Kim wanted to find it. She thought it might help when they talked to her father.

Just as Ann was about to say something, the phone rang. She jumped out of her seat so fast, she almost knocked it over in her rush to answer the phone. Yanking the receiver off of its place on the wall, she checked the caller ID. Her face fell, and she dejectedly make her way back to her seat, shoulders hunched. "Just a magazine subscription group," she said sadly.

Kim looked at her mother and thought about her reaction to the phone for a moment. "Mom," she said tentatively, not wanting to upset her mother, "is that why you hadn't left the house for so long? Because you were expecting daddy to call?"

She drew a deep, steadying breath. "Not expecting, Kim. Hoping." She then took another drink of coffee before she added, "He never could remember my cell phone number, but he could always remembered our home phone number."

"Didn't he have it stored in his phone's memory?" asked Ron.

"He...ah... smashed it that day Ron, right after he listened to the first part of Kim's phone call from earlier that day. The chip was damaged and he never programmed it into the new one." she said with regret, not really wanting to bring that incident up now that things were so much better.

"Ah...yeah," Ron mumbled hesitantly, "uh...sorry."

"Okay," said Kim as she tried to change the subject. "Ron, after breakfast would you go home, get yourself some fresh, clean clothes and pickup some for me too please? You can then stop off at the post office on your way back. While you're doing that, Mom and I'll try to make arrangements to get a meeting with Dr. Wong set up for this afternoon. Oh, and make sure you bring me back one of my GJ uniforms. I don't know if it will make a difference with Dr. Wong but it couldn't hurt."

"Sure Kim, but I have a question. If James should call this afternoon and I'm here, would I really be the best person to answer it?"

Kim tapped her chin with her finger as she thought for a moment, then she spoke. "We can program the phone here to forward it to mom's cell phone. You would have to check the caller ID and if it is him you could then forward it on. How does that sound?" Her last question was aimed at her mother as well.

Now that she had help, Ann readily agreed. She hadn't want to start receiving all of the crank calls and telemarketers while she was out so this plan would work. Her heart leapt every time the phone rang thinking it might be her husband and she was afraid of having a car wreck if her cell phone rang while driving over someone wanting to sell her vinyl siding.

xxx

After they finished breakfast and Ron left, Kim called Director Betty's office at Global Justice to see if her secretary could arrange an appointment for her and her mother with the director of the board of the Space Research Center, Dr. Wanda Wong. Fearing that such an interview might be classified as outside her current duty listing, Kim wasn't really wanting to talk to the Director in person, thinking she might not approve it. So of course the first thing the Director's secretary did was to transfer Kim to Betty herself.

"Kim. You know I can't let you use this organization for your personal business, no matter how much I want to help you."

"But Director, I've got a chance to ..."

"I know that this has been personal burden to you." Betty interrupted Kim. "One that has been holding you back from becoming the agent that you are capable of becoming, but I have to say 'no' to your request."

She swallowed hard. "I... I understand, Director," She mumbled, resigned. She knew that to go through regular channels could take days or even weeks to arrange such a meeting.

"Good, Agent Stoppable. I'm glad I made myself clear on this matter." Betty replied, sounding rather satisfied. "I know how family problems can affect an Agent's performance."

"Yes, Director," Kim muttered blankly as she got ready to hang up the phone.

"I do however," continued Director Betty, "need an Agent available to conduct an interview with Dr. Wong this afternoon at 1:00 concerning a mystery they have that they contacted _us_ on. One stemming from an indecent from several months ago. This wouldn't be to far out of your current level of responsibilities and I have no one else available. Would you be willing to do this, as a personal favor to me?"

Kim swallowed several times as joy bubbled up in her throat. "Certainly Director," Kim squeaked as her voice broke over her failed effort to remain professional. "Would it be permissible for me to take a friend since this is short notice and I am technically on personal leave?"

"I think that would be alright. You friend may be asked to wait outside the office if the materials are deemed to be 'classified' though."

"Understood and Director, thank you. For your...trust in me."

The Director smiled to herself as silence filled the line. "Not at all. I hope this assignment might help... ease your burdens." With the conversation ended, she hung up her phone, but stared at it as she thought about trying to call her brother and maybe they could just...talk.

xxx

Ron made the trip to their home and he couldn't stop smiling. For the first time in over a year, things were going right for her. Things were going right for _them_ he corrected himself. Things had been _alright_ for them but never really _right. _He wasn't sure if it was Kim getting back with her mother or what happened between the two of them last night, but thing felt right again.

He picked up enough extra clothing for the two of them to last several days. They had decided to make Ann's house a sort of base of operations in their trying to heal thing with her father, since they didn't want her to worry about a possible phone call that may or may not come. In addition to Kim's uniform, Ron also grabbed her Global Justice ID and her personal mobile database thinking she might need them.

The Post Office was quiet when he walked in. No other customers were there so he was able to walk right up to the person at the counter who looked familiar. A little shorter than Kim with short auburn hair and she looked to be his age. He remembered her once he noticed she was wearing a blue sweater in the cool air conditioned building. Her name was...Linda. They never hung around together much but she was always nice to him and he didn't ever remember not being nice and polite to her.

When she saw him, she recognized him immediately and with a smile that dimmed a little when she seemed to remember something, she said, "Hello, Ron, long time no see."

"Hi, Linda." he made sure to say before he glanced at her name badge which identified her as the Post Master for this particular branch. "Yes it has been a long time. How are you?" He thought he remembered something about her marrying someone else he knew before his own wedding, but that had been a while ago and for all he knew it could have gone bad.

"Fine. Our first born is in preschool now with a second on the way. Mike works as the maintenance for the place as well as several other branches."

"But that's not why you came here today so what can I do for you?"

He noticed that she'd skipped over asking about himself and Kim. They'd heard about some vague rumors that had been going around town since the wedding, but they'd never found out exactly what they were. It was one of the reasons they'd moved to Upperton, looking over your shoulder if you heard someone talking behind your back wasn't how they want to live. But like she said, that wasn't the reason he was here.

"Well you see, about six months ago, Kim mailed some things from this branch and one really important item must have gotten lost because it was never received."

Even before he'd gotten the entire sentence out, he could see her attitude change for the worse.

"Do you know how many times the post office has been blamed for ruining people's lives because _we_ lost things, like checks or money in the mail? Honestly. Most people just use that as an excuse because they didn't mail it in the first place," she spat in reply, her voice holding traces of anger and defensiveness "We do everything we can to make sure that we _don't _lose things, but we can't help it if it's improperly addressed or illegible."

"No, no, no, please Linda," he said quickly, wanting to explain why he was there. "I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I just wanted to see if there was anyway it could be traced or tracked down. It was the wedding invitation we sent to her parents that went missing. Her mother said they never got it and that caused a lot of grief because they thought we didn't care about them. Most of that has been forgiven now, mostly, but I just wanted to see if there was any _chance _of locating it. Please?"

Linda had heard the rumors. Rumors saying that the two of them had gotten so full of themselves that they hadn't bothered to invite her own parents that day. Rumors saying that Ron had pulled a knife on her father while she laughed about it while he cut him. Rumors that her parents were fed up with them and wouldn't attend the wedding. Kim's parents had done a lot for the other students at Middleton. Always offering to chaperon when needed, willing to take on interns from school to help the student earn extra credit, granting interviews for homework assignments, generally helping anyone that ask for it. Her mother had helped one girl get counseling when she found out she was pregnant. That counseling allowed the girl to graduate and keep her baby. Lots of students looked up to the Possibles. That was one reason why a lot of them left Kim and Ron's wedding so quickly after it was over, because of the rumors of what they'd done to her parents. Seeing the sad, almost hurt puppy look on his face now, she saw those rumors couldn't have been true. Not the way she'd heard them anyway.

"Mike! Would you come up here please?" she called into the back room. "I wasn't here that day, but I remember Mike was, since he said something about Kim dropping them off. Let's ask him. Maybe he'll remember something helpful."

Normally her husband knew that she would only call him up front if there was a problem that she needed help with for a customer, or if there problem customer that she needed help with and he was ready and willing to help with either. Stooping down so his head would clear the door way, Big Mike, as he was still called, stepped into the room.

Early in his high school life. Mike had been an introvert, keeping to himself and not wanting to make friends easily because he was so self conscious of his size. That had always hurt his grades and made him more of a loner and a trouble maker. It wasn't till he met a cheerleader in detention hall that had been bold enough to talk to him like he was a person, that he started to come out of his shell. She even painted his fingernail with a sparkly nail polish. Later he gather the courage to talk to a girl he really liked, although she never knew it. A girl that always wore a blue sweater.

He met the cheerleader's father who was more than willing to help him catch up in some of his science courses or introduce him to someone else that could help him in some areas better than her father could. He had received a small scholarship that went a long way at the vocational school he went to to learn about machinery repair. It had come from the people that had help tutored him at the Space Center.

Before he had a chance to say anything, Linda turned to her husband. "Michael. Do you remember the day Kim Possible came in to mail her wedding invitations? It would have been about..."

"Yeah," he answered, his voice resonating in his chest to fill the room. "I remember." He remembered Kim coming in looking like she'd lost her best friend while trying to keep a happy face and telling Big Mike about the wedding. It seemed she want to say more to him, but she didn't. Almost like it was painful to her.

"Ron says that one of those invitations got lost, the one for her parents and they never received it." She spoke the last part of her sentence slowly so that its meaning fully sank in for her husband. She knew what rumors he'd heard. "He'd like to know if there was any way we could track it after Kim dropped it off."

Ron could have sworn that he felt the big man's gaze soften a little bit and he thought his stance seemed to relax too as he waited for an answer.

"No. Not at all."

The couple could see Ron's shoulders sag as he was given to cold, hard facts of the real world. There was no way to trace that invitation that was a part of the group that was the last to be processed by...

"Wait a minute, Ron!" Mike called him back as he turned away. "I just remembered something. That bunch of invitations were the last things that we let BONNIE process. She might have held on to something."

"Bonnie?" asked Ron, clearly not understanding.

Smiling now, Mike said, "Come on Ron. I'll explain it as we go in the back room."

As the two walked past the front counter and into the back area, Mike explained. "When Linda and I got transferred here, they had an automatic sorting machine that was made by the Bonn Corporation, Model IE for International Express. You could dump everything into a bin and it got sorted, postmarked and then sorted again for it's destination. It worked great until the warranty ran out. Then it became a living hell. I started breaking down and needing new parts, settings would start needing to be readjusted almost hourly, and it was slowing down the rest of the process until you went in to give it the attention it thought it deserved. It became a real high maintenance bitch. That's when we gave it the nickname BONNIE."

Ron bit back a chuckle. "Kinda like the real person was? I heard she got better after hanging around a male version of herself for so long. She did like to put people down back then."

"Hey, if you were the bottom of the food chain, I was the scum that fell from your mouth," Mike half-joked while holding back a lot of memories that included Linda. "Anyway, the higher ups finally decided that BONNIE wasn't cost effective anymore, so they bought a new machine to replace her with. Problem was that it was so big they had to hire an outside crew to install it after pulling BONNIE out of the line, and they were expensive. Really expensive. The plan was that they show up at the end of the day, after we'd completely shutdown everything and did a final shutdown and search of BONNIE, which meant taking her apart and checking all the rails and slots, but those guys had their own time table and showed up before we even closed the front desk. They gave us fifteen minutes to shut everything down so they could start. Linda called it into the regional postmaster to complain and let us finish, but the cost overruled us." he said with regret. "We emptied the bins and did a quick check and everything looked clear, so they changed everything out and BONNIE got pushed into a store room."

"You kept it?" asked Ron as they entered the back store room and he could see a tarp covering something massive.

"Yeah. It would have cost more to move it than they would have gotten back for scrap so we were told to hold on to it for parts for machines at other branches that still have one. Funny thing, no one's needed anything off it so it hasn't been touched since we put her in here."

As he finished talking, the big man pulled the tarp off with one pull revealing BONNIE. To Ron it looked more like something he and Kim would have found in one of Doctor Drakken's lairs back in the day. Big and round with dials and levers all over it and little arms that could do God knows what if anyone got to close. Out of old habit, he started looking for a self destruct button and thought he'd found it, but Mike said it was just a kill switch to shut it down.

As Ron looked at BONNIE and wondered where to start, Mike reach a table off to the side and brought out a trouble light and a cordless drill and smiled. "Well, let's lift her skirts and see what we can find."

Ron's brain caught up with what Big Mike said after a moment, and he shuddered, giving the bigger man a grossed-out look. "That is so sick and wrong."

Big Mike grinned, "No, seriously, Ron. We have to remove the outer metal skirt of the thing to check inside."

"Oh. Okay then."

Two hours later, after having used almost all the tools Mike had avaiable and resort to some knuckle buster to remove various screws and bolts that hadn't been oiled for over 8 months, they were half way done when Ron started getting worried about the time. He's called Kim to let her know where he was and what he was doing and he found out about her 1:00 meeting. He still had to get back to her parents house in time to let her change and still give them time to drive to the center.

He was just about ready to give it up for the day when Mike finally brightened. "Ron. Hand me the light. I think I see something."

After passing the light to the big man, who was laying on the floor looking up into the machinery, he heard, "Yeah. Come her and see if you can reach it. I can't fit my fat hands up there without tearing it down some more and you don't have the time."

Replace Mike's spot on the floor and with the light shinning up into it, Ron saw something there. Once again he wished he had Rufus with him, but the little guy was with Hanna and the folks. They were visiting his mother's relations in Norway.

With just an inch to spare, Ron was able to retrieve the envelope. Covered in old grease, oil and dirt from working on tearing BONNIE apart, Ron stood up and examined the still sealed envelope, addressed to her parents and had been postmarked with the date it had gone missing.

Mike studied the envelope and said, "I think I see the reason it got stuck. It looks thicker than a normal envelope the same size. She must have stuck something else in it besides the invitation, something she hadn't put in the others or else they all would have jammed in it. If that had happened, we might have caught it then."

Ron remembered the hand written letter Kim had included in it. The letter to her parents asking for an RSVP and pleading for a chance at a reconciliation. That must have been what cause it to jam in the machinery. Ann words about 'if it could have gone wrong, it did.' came back to him again.

Looking at the equally dirty school alumni, he couldn't stammer out enough thanks to the man or his wife.

Mike slapped Ron on the back, almost knocking him back down to the floor and told him, "Hey. No big."

After only taking enough time to get an old blanket out of the trunk of the car to spread on the driver's seat so he didn't leave it as dirty as he was at that moment, he sped back to his wife.

When he found them both in the kitchen, neither one of them said anything when they saw what he had in his hand. As carefully as possible, so he didn't transfer any dirt to the invitation or his second mother, he handed it to Ann.

She looked at it carefully, examining, or memorizing the calligraphy that they used and the wax seal marking it as something special, but she barely glanced at the postmark proving when it was mailed. Smiling a contented smile now, she picked up her purse and put the unopened envelope in it.

Both Ron and Kim were shocked and asked, "Aren't you going to open it?"

Ann smiled at the two and said nonchalantly. "I don't have to open it to know what is in it. You already told me and I believe you. I'll leave that honor up to your father when we see him. It may make things a lot easier if he is the first to open it.

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_TBC_

Sorry if this chapter seemed to just drag on, but sometimes you just have to take the time to explain a few things and do a little setting up for the rest of the story.

The never named Blue Sweater Girl that we always saw in the background has a name. While doing some research on a name for a different story, I found that she was given a name in a KP teaser ad on the Spy Kids DVD. It shows a schoolbook type page with her picture in the upper left. Her name is Linda. No last name was I need to get a life.

_As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, PM me or put it in a review._

_Please review. There is always room for improvement and nothing is written in stone. _

_Stone has no check smelter._


	11. Chapter 11

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.

The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

xxx

A Special thanks to Temporaryinsanity91 for not only Beta reading this chapter, but for putting up with me.

Time to say thank you to the people that have left reviews for the previous chapter.

Krikanalo, Ajw1970, CajunBear73, UnknownDescent, Jimmy1201, Sentinel103, Shinzochi, and Beckman.

Sorry it has taken so long for me to update the story. I won't bore anyone with the details so lets just say real world thingies.

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Previously

She looked at it carefully, examining, or memorizing the calligraphy that they used and the wax seal marking it as something special, but she barely glanced at the postmark proving when it was mailed. She then picked up her purse and put the unopened envelope in it.

Both Ron and Kim asked in shocked voices, "Aren't you going to open it?"

Ann smiled at the two and said nonchalantly, "I don't have to to know what is in it. I'll leave that honor up to your father when we see him. It may make things a lot easier to explain if he is the first to open it.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

While Ron went out to the garage to try and get most of the dirt and grime from BONNIE off him at the Tweeb's old wash station, Kim went upstairs to change and start getting herself ready for the interview. Her mother had already dressed while they waited for Ron, asked her daughter for permission for something before she went up to change.

Inside the garage, Ron had removed his shirt and was busy at the sink trying to scrub his face, hands and arms clean when he heard the door open and close. With his face covered in soap, he said, "Ya know KP, I think we're finally back on track. In a way, I think we've done more good in the last twenty hours than we did on all the missions we went on. I mean we did good things then, but not the kind of things that made me feel this good about ourselves. Know what I mean?"

"Yes Ronald. I do." came Ann's voice.

Turning quickly as he grabbed one of the old towels they kept there for this purpose, he tried to wipe the soap from his face and cover his top half, embarrassed at being caught without his shirt.

Anne smiled a little bit. "Ron, I seem to remember putting a little boy in the bath tub with my daughter so I could get them both clean while I washed his clothes before his mother stopped by to pick him up... and he was wearing a lot less than you are now." Her small smile had morphed into an amused smirk.

Ron smiled sheepishly at her as he remembered the great mud pie fiasco during his and Kim's time in Pre-K. His mother had dropped him off for a play day and he's tried to impress Kim by showing her how to make mud pies. They'd ended getting more on themselves than anything else.

"Yeah," he said as he finished wiping the soap off his face, trying to not be so obvious about hiding behind the towel. "Sorry about that."

"Ron, I'm not trying to seduce you. I need your help," she said after seeing his reaction. At some other time she might have felt slightly charmed that she could get such a reaction from a young man, but this was not that time.

"Mom, I don't know what more I can do," Ron mumbled with a sigh.

"Ron, what I need from you is for you to tell me what's going on in his mind. I need to know what I can do to help bring him home. You gave me the first glimpse last night when you said what you thought about his letter. That was the first time I got past "what" he did and understood some of "why" he did it. I know from what you said last night to Kim that you were ready to do the same thing to her if you thought it would help. Please, share some of that with me and what you think he's feeling. Please, Ron." and then she added, "Son."

Seeing two chairs that had been brought out at one point or another, he went over and wiped one off and indicated for Ann to sit in it while he pulled the other over to face it and for him to sit in after she'd taken a seat.

Ann waited for him to sit down and while he looked at his hands trying to figure out how to put feelings into words. It took a couple of minutes of silence before he started.

"Based on what you said, what I read in his letter and what I felt with Kim," and here he took a deep breath before plunging into it. "I think he felt like we all did at one point. That it was all his fault and he feels totally responsible for everything. He thought you were stronger than he was and that he was only dragging you down because of him."

She sat there as her body stiffened and her hands clenched as she willed herself not to interrupt him even though she wanted to vehemently deny what he was saying.

Ron understood her expression and smiled sadly. "I know that's wrong and not really how it was, that's just the way I think _he_ felt it was." He was silent a moment before he spoke again. "I don't think he left you, even if that's what he did, so much as he gave you up."

Seeing the look she had on her face, one that showed she didn't understand, Ron continued, his voice distant. "Near the school at Yamanouchi, there is a small town with an orphanage and I spent some time there with them helping out. One night, I heard someone knock at the front door and when I went to answer it, I found a baby that someone had left there with a note asking them to please take care of the baby. When I woke the headmistress, she took the baby and as she was checking it out she explained to me that there were basically three reasons why someone would leave a baby like that. One, the child really was an orphan with no one to take care of it. Two, it was an unwanted baby that someone just didn't want to be bothered with. Three, it was a very much wanted baby, but the parents knew that they were so poor or unable to bring it up properly, that it would have a better life with someone else. They gave it up because they loved it so much, they gave it up so it would have a better life than they could give it. That's why I think he left you Ann. So you could have a better life than if he'd stayed."

Ann had to control herself, holding back her tears even as her fingernails dug into her palms. It was several moments before she was able to ask the question that was like fire on her mind and on her tongue. "What about now, Ronald? It's been over six months. What's he feeling now, after all that time?"

Wanting to be as honest as he could with her, since he knew that last night with Kim was a result of the talk she had with Kim before she went to bed, he tried to image his own life, if he had ended up leaving Kim and that took more than a few minutes.

"Mom, I don't think he's in a very happy place right now. If...if this were me, thinking I was totally to blame for everything that he thinks really happened, and I had left Kim after making sure that she had money coming in,... I might have totally withdrawn into myself, feeling the self loathing and the need to be punished for what I'd done. I wouldn't have been able to do anything other than try and figure out how to fix something that I didn't believe could be fixed. I don't know how he is still able to work."

"Make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven." she mumbled after a moment's silence.

"What?"

"It's a quote John Milton's Paradise Lost. '_The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven.'"_

At that moment, they both heard Kim call, "Mom. We should probably get going now."

"Okay Kimmie. I'll meet you at the front door." As she stood up, she "Thank you Ronald. That may help." As she was walking to the door to take her back into the house she stopped and without turning to face him she said, "Thank you." again. "Thank you for not leaving my daughter when she needed you and thank you for taking care of her when she needed you most."

She then hurried out of the garage and back into the main house to meet Kim before they left to try to bring James back home.

xxx

Mother and daughter took Ann's van to the Space Center with Kim driving. While her mother was trying to think of what to say to her husband, if given a chance, Kim was devoting almost as much time watching her speed as she was watching the road. She was anxious to get there to find out something about her father and more than twice, she had to slow the van back down to the speed limit. Even though her mother was lost in thought, Kim could tell she was just as anxious too considering the number of times she'd opened her purse to make sure their wedding invitation was there.

What Kim didn't know was how many times during their trip Ann regretted not going to that cupboard before leaving the house, just to get something to help calm her nerves for the meeting. Ann hoped she was able to hide the slight trembling in her hands from her daughter. Unsure if it was being nervous at the prospect of seeing James again or an aftereffect from her trying to make the pain go away over the last six months, she put the question behind her about how long it would take till she felt safe to hold a scalpel in her hands again.

When they could see their destination's entrance, Kim held out her hand for her mother to take as she said, "Have faith mom. We are going to talk to him and convince him to come home again so we can put this mess behind us and make sure that it never happens again."

xxx

As they pulled up, Kim could see that there were now two sets of gates. Another had been set up about seventy feet behind the other, enough room to allow a semi tractor and trailer to pass the first set of gates but still have room to stop for the second. It was manned by the military. The person at the first gate was a familiar face, even if she hadn't seen it in over a year. Frank Flanigan.

Frank Flanigan had been working Security at the Space Center longer than Kim had been alive, ever since he'd been drinking at a dive bar one night in a very bad section of town, when a man and his good looking pregnant wife walked in. Their car broke down and since it was below freezing outside, her husband didn't want to subject her to the temperature while waiting. All they wanted was to make a phone call for a cab and then a tow truck.

None of the normal bar flies were in that night, most of them had been driven out by a bunch that thought themselves bad-asses. Some of those guys fancied the woman and started making some rude suggestions to the lady about what they intended to do to her and how they meant to make sure that they happened after they took her husband out of the picture. Frank glanced at the bartender and saw that he was already calling the police even though the last time he'd called them about a bar fight, it'd taken thirty minutes for them to show up. Way to long a time to do any good. Glancing at the husband, he's saw he was as ready for the fight as he would ever be. Scared as hell, but ready to fight to the end.

Frank would never say that he'd come to their rescue that night, even though they kept telling him that over the years. The truth was he got the crap beat out of him, even worse than James Possible did, because he tried to help them, but he'd managed to help stall things till the police finally got there. While he was still in the hospital, he had a couple of visitors and found out that not only had his hospital and Doctor's bills been taken care of, but he had a job waiting for him, so to say he had a personal history with James and Ann Possible was an understatement. so to say he had a personal history with James and Ann Possible was an understatement.

As he saw the van start to pull up to the gate, thinking it was Ann again, he felt bad because since James had revoked her visitor's pass, he still could let her in the Center to talk to her husband. He had heard the rumors too about their daughter and the way she'd treated them. Those rumors hadn't come from her father, since he hadn't spoken a word to anyone about the break up, but from people in town that knew them. Or had known them. Just as he wondered how the girl that had done so much for the world, could have treated her parents that way, he looked up to see the window of the van start to roll down to reveal a different redhead than he was expecting to see.

"Hello Mr. Flanigan. How are you?" came the redhead's voice.

It took a couple of heart beats before he could answer and in that time, Kim got a feeling of apathy from him, as if she was the last person he wanted to see, as his stance stiffened. When he recovered, he quickly looked at the list of people that had appointments at the center that day before he turned back to her saying, "I'm sorry Miss Possible, but you haven't been given clearance to enter the facility."

"Try under my married name. Stoppable. Agent Kim Stoppable from Global Justice." She paused before adding, "And friend."

During the time that Ron and Big Mike were stripping BONNIE down, Mike had told Ron about some of the rumors that were going around about them and the Possibles, just so he could try and separate what really had and hadn't happened. Ron was more than willing to talk about what happened figuring that it was better to let Mike know the truth instead of letting him believe some of the stories that were being spread around. Ron had told Kim some of the worst ones just to let her know what people were thinking happened. With Kim and her mother going out, they might get a chance to do some damage control for both families just by being seen together.

Frank looked past Kim, to the person sitting in the passenger's seat, and he saw the friend he had been first expecting to see when Kim rolled down her window. It took him about a minute to decide that things must not have been as bad as the rumors suggested or else the two would be in the same van together.

Smiling at Kim but looking towards her mother, he said, "I'm sorry Ann. I never called like you asked because I never saw him leave."

"Have you seen him at all?" Ann asked.

"Only walking from one building to another, but that's only been a handful of times over the past year and none at all in the last few months." he replied. "I'm sorry."

Kim asked her mother what they were talking about as Frank got their driver's licenses and prepared their temporary visitor's passes.

"He's an old friend of your father's and mine and I asked him to please let me know when your father left the center. I thought I might be able to talk to him away from here." she replied.

Frank handed them their visitor's badges telling them to wear them at all times while they were on property and when they left to turn them in and they would get their driver's licenses returned then. He then told Kim to drive up to the next set of gates to have the van inspected and turn over any electronic devices, reminding them to follow any orders given by the military guards there.

Kim checked to make sure that she was wearing a backup flash drive necklace that Wade had given her before he went into seclusion. He had told her to always wear it since she would never know when she might need it.

Just as he was about to turn away, he looked like he wanted to say something but couldn't. Finally he said, "Good luck Ann. I hope you find what you want." He then turned to Kim and said, "Kimberly, nice to see you again and I'm sorry about some of the things I may have thought about you over the past year."

"It's okay Mr. Flanigan. I probably deserved some of them. Not all, but some."

Twenty minutes later as they were parking the van in their assigned parking space to await the person to escort them inside, Ann could have described her daughter as looking 'petulant.' That would have been the word she'd use when Kim was growing up or when she was talking about it in polite company.

"I have never been through such an intensive search, questioning or security interrogation in all my life, and that includes when we went to meet the President after that ordeal with the Lowardians," groused Kim as she was getting out of the vehicle.

At that moment, the more accurate word would have been "pissed."

As her mother came around the side to stand by her, she said. "You and Ron may not have had to go through it Kim, but your father and I did, along with his parents and the twins."

Looking at the surprised look on Kim's face her mother explained. "Kim. It wasn't about any of us then. It was about you and Ron meeting the President. That was your _moment_ and we didn't care about the security measures we had to go through then. Although, they have beefed up the security here even more than the last time I was here."

Looking at the ground and feeling the regret of her statement, Kim said, "You're right Mom. This isn't about me but about talking to dad. I'm sorry."

"Kim." Ann rested her hand on her daughter's. "It took us both over a year to get to the point where we could say 'I'm sorry,' but we need to put that behind us for a while and concentrate on the person we both need to say it to. Your father. Alright?"

"You're right again Mom," Kim answered thoughtfully. But before she could say anything more, she caught sight of something parked in a different area of the parking lot they were in. A vintage Jaguar that could only belong to one person.

Just as she was about to share this little bubble of happiness she got a better look at it, just before the bubble burst for her. Even from that distance, she could see the grimy windshield and windows, and all the trash that was under it making it look like it had sat there for sometime unattended. Her father would have never allowed it to look like that since it was one of the things that her grandfather had bequeathed to him before he passed away while Kim was still in grade school.

Following her daughter's gaze, Ann saw the same thing she did and came to the same conclusions. That car and a walnut case were the two things his father...the walnut case! She'd forgotten all about it. A little fear crept into her concern about her husband, especially if Ron was correct about his mental state.

"Come on Kimmie. Let's just wait till we talk to your father before we start jumping to any conclusions."

After they both had to surrender their cell phones and Kim her GJ Mobil Database, they were both escorted through a very narrow hallway into the building. Kim noticed that the hallway was an add-on to the main entrance and there were two doors on it. One marked "Entrance," and one marked "Exit." There was a security checkpoint in the entrance side so she suspected there was one on the exit side as well.

When they finally made their way to Dr. Wong's office empty office, they were asked to have a seat inside till the Doctor got back from a meeting. They both noticed their escort waited outside the door with the door open as if guarding the room, or them. They weren't sure which, but fortunately, they didn't have to wait long.

Dr. Wong came quickly into the room, still reading something in the folder in her hand as she said, "My apologies for running late. We're still trying to restructure the several departments with the staff we have on..." She stopped talking when she looked up at the two women sitting in front of her as she realized who she was talking to.

"Kimberly?...Ann? I—I'm sorry, but what are you doing here?" She asked as she checked her appointment schedule. "I was expecting an Agent Staubable."

A smile flashed across Kim's face as she said, "Its Agent _Stoppable_. Kim Stoppable. Ron and I were married over six months ago and I took his last name."

Dr. Wong gave Kim a nod to cover her own thoughts as she wondered if her secretary had misunderstood the name, mistyped it or if it had been misspoken in the beginning, because the name 'Stoppable,' was on a very short list of names that should have raised a red flag, along with all of the Possibles.

When James revoked their designated visitor's status, their names were automatically moved to a higher risk category and any of them requesting to enter the center would have required a second security check, but since Kim was a member of Global Justice and since the Center had requested this meeting, Dr. Wong decided to go ahead with the meeting.

Yes, she'd heard that Kimberly had gotten married back about the time that her best scientist's work started slipping at an alarming rate. A few people had said something to him about the wedding, to only witness a man almost ready to collapse into himself. No one mentioned it after that, either in his presence or absence. He had removed himself as head of any projects, but his contributions to the projects dropped steadily after that. Performance as well as psychiatric reports had been filled out, but all of this information was filed, safe and secure in his personal file in the HR computers.

Back to the moment at hand, the chairman of the board said, "Yes, well, the..."

"Dr. Wong," Kim interrupted her. "Before we get started on the reason you asked for a meeting with a Global Justice Agent, I, I mean _we_, have a personal favor to ask you."

Wanda Wong interlaced her fingers and put her hands on her desk as she waited for Kim to continue.

"A little over a year ago, some things were said. No. Some terrible things were said that were never meant and never should have been said in the first place. Things that tore our family apart. Everybody blamed themselves in one way or another and it took mom and me over a year before we were even able to try and talk to each other, let alone make up like we have. We just want to talk to my dad now, so he can understand what happened."

"Kim" Wanda said as gently as she could. "I've heard about this before. Your mother told me about it back when she came here looking for James."

"Yes" continued Ann. "but what I didn't know at the time was that Kim _did_ try to reach out to us months before James moved out. We just didn't know about it then, but I can prove it to him now, if only you'll make arrangements for us to see him, or at least pass this on to him." She finished her plea by pulling the wedding invitation out of her purse and showing it to Dr. Wong.

She looked at her hands as she thought about how to respond before she said. "Ladies, it's not like we have in him in a dungeon chained to a wall. This was all his doing and he did it well. It now involves the Center's security since he changed everything, his personal information with our Human Resources Department. Like I told you before Ann, he's removed you as his next of kin, spouse and doctor, and I can't legally disclose any of his personal information to anyone. My hands are tied in this matter since he requested in writing 'no visitors under any circumstances.' I can't even pass that envelope on to him for different reasons."

"But why?" asked both women at the same time.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that with you."

"What about to an agency representative like Global Justice?" asked Kim.

"Only if you had a warrant or could show a just reason other than your own personal ones. Kimberly, you are here to collect information concerning an incident we had three months ago. I wish I could help you, but like I said before, my hands are..." She let the sentence trail off as an idea hit her.

Turning to her computer, she said, "There might be a way...but I need to verify something in his files." After calling up his file folder and checking that 'something,' keeping what it was to herself, she picked up her phone and started dialing as she said, "Let me check with the head of our HR department about it to see if I'm correct."

"Jennifer? This is Wanda. I need to ask you something about James T. Possible and our legal obligations so far as releasing any of his personal information." After she paused long enough to hear the reply, Wanda said, "I have Ann Possible and her daughter in my office now so I need to come to your office to ask it." She paused to listen to the woman on the other end, nodding as she jotted something down. "I'll be right down."

Turning to the two ladies in her office, she said, "I'll only be a few minutes, but don't get your hopes up. We tend to stick to the most cautious side in these matters." When she left, she pulled the door closed behind her.

Ann turned to Kim and tried to give her a reassuring smile, but before she could, Kim said without hiding her excitement, "Mom. You need to believe me when I say that I love both you and daddy and even if he never forgives me or Ron for what happened, I'm going to make sure that you two get back together. No matter what." Before she could ask her daughter what she meant, Kim had stood up and was moving behind Dr. Wong's desk to look at the file still called up on the computer.

"Kim! What are you doing?"

"Dr. Wong's not going to be able to legally tell us anything. That discussion with HR is just a show for us. There is only one way that we can get what we need."

Seeing that the one file wasn't going to give them much information on her father, Kim pulled out her necklace and plugged it into the access port on the side of the monitor. After the system saw the new device attached, Kim started copying James's entire folder, figuring she could sort through it when they got back to the house, after stopping to pick up her laptop that Wade gave her.

"Kim! What you're doing is illegal. You could get arrested and go to prison! Not to mention losing your job!"

"Doesn't matter mom. You guys are more important to me. Ron will understand and he'll wait for me. We'll always get conjugal visits, but I have to do this. If you want to make sure I don't do this then all you have to do is tell the guard standing outside the door. I'm sure he will find a way to stop me, but that's the only way."

Everything was happening too fast and too slow at the same time for Ann as she wasn't sure what she should do. She was desperate to talk to her husband, but she didn't want Kim to have to pay for everybody's past mistakes. She turned to look at the door, watching the door knob for any sign that it was turning, knowing that with all of the carpet in the hallways, she'd never be able to hear any footsteps.

For Kim, time was passing to quickly while the copying was taking far to long. There was a huge amount of data in his files, probably going all the way back to his original job application and the process indicator crawled at a snail's pace. Just when it finally reached ninety eight percent, she saw her mother waving her hand almost at the same time that she heard the door start to open.

"The interview shouldn't last too much longer," said Wanda Wong to the guard outside her door before going back in. "Sorry, but I had to do some unexpected verification on a matter before I could continue. You'll be able to get back to your other duties soon. I will be asking the civilian to wait out here in the hall while I discuss the problem with the GJ agent. Please show her where the vending area is if she wants."

Looking at the two people waiting for her in her office, sitting in their chairs just like when she left them, she said, "I'm sorry, but after talking with the head of our HR department she informed me that the idea I had wouldn't apply and we are still legally bound to keep the information as 'strictly confidential.'"

After sitting back in her office chair behind her desk and seeing the disappointed look on their faces, she said, "I really am sorry Ann. You've invited me into your home many times and I always thought you and James would be together forever."

After Ann was able to mouth a 'thank you,' to Wanda, her face crestfallen, she asked about the ladies' room. As Wanda walked her to the door to ask the guard to show her where the restrooms were, she asked Ann to wait outside or in the vending area while she and Kim discussed the reason Global Justice was called in.

After Ann had left, the door closed again and Wanda was back in her chair, she turned to Kim and said, "Agent Stoppable, do you remember when you rode in what was then an untested hypersonic aircraft? I believe it was around Christmas time several years ago."

"Yes I do. It was a rescue mission to find my partner and best friend after he foiled one of Dr. Drakken's schemes to take over the world. It was a new and improved version of a GJ hover jet I believe."

"Yes. The Mark IV." Steepling her finger now, her body language showing her concentration on the matter, Dr. Wong continued. "We have five of what might be called the Mark V's here for testing. They are basically the same model except they have an on-board AI program that Dr. Freeman created which included a auto pilot that could make critical in-flight decisions should the need arise. It could take emergency evasion maneuvers if they were fired upon while the agent was working on something or wounded and unable to fly the craft themselves. It would basically be an on-board partner such as Dr. Freeman's SADI automobile was for him."

"But there was a problem with them." added Kim.

"Not with them _directly_." confided Dr. Wong. "You see, one night three months ago, all five of the Mark V's took off on unscheduled and unplanned trips. They went to several different destinations, unmanned and for no known reason. They stayed at those spots for twenty minutes and then returned. When we checked the on-board computers, they recorded the flight paths they took and any alterations that they made in-flight to avoid any mid-air accidents, but none of them recorded what happened after they landed or anything about the interior of the craft during the flights. When they returned, they all landed here at the Center, within minutes of each other. We thought that after checking all the programing, analyzing the data that was recorded and the flight records, we could determine how or why this happened. If it was an attempt to steal their programing designs, a programing or design flaw or someone wanted the hover jets themselves, but after three months, we are no closer now than we were the first day."

"I see." said Kim. "And you want our people at Global Justice to see if they can figure out what happened?"

"Yes. I do since we seem to be unable to solve the mystery ourselves." Turning to her computer to call up all the files concerning the hover jets disappearances and then reappearances, Dr. Wong saw that she hadn't closed James Possible's file folder. After closing that, she saw a small information work box that was open. Looking at it for about two heart beats, she closed it and then opened the file folder she needed. Reaching in her drawer to retrieve a flash drive to copy the information onto, she found it empty.

"Damn it!" she swore. "I forgot I used the last one I had for that meeting." Then, "Kimberly you wouldn't happen to have a flash drive on you, would you?"

"I beg your pardon?" asked Kim keeping a sudden feeling of fear hidden from her voice.

"When the Mark V's left, the Center's computer system went into a security lock down. Most of that was lifted after the first week, but since we're still not sure if our own computer system was involved, it has been cut off from any outside communication. The only way I can give you all the files and research that we've obtained so you can take them back to your GJ base is to copy them onto a flash drive and we are totally out of them."

"Oh." said Kim as she reluctantly and with a mounting fear of discovery handed Dr. Wong her necklace, which after a few comments about how beautiful it was, plugged it into the very same port Kim had used. Kim held her breath as Dr. Wong glanced at its contents long enough to make sure that there was sufficient space for the files and hopefully didn't look at the names of the ones that were already there. She didn't start breathing again till Wanda started copying the needed files to it.

While that was being done, she reached into another drawer and pulled out a plastic envelope and started writing on it. Kim's fear started to climb even more since the envelope looked like one that GJ used when they were collecting evidence at a crime scene, compete with a label to seal it to prevent tampering with its contents. Sitting there in silence and almost holding her breath again, Kim waited for the computer to finish copying the files, trying to appear calm.

After what seemed like forever to Kim, the files were copied. Dr. Wong removed the necklace drive and put it into the envelope and started sealing it.

"Mind if I ask what you are doing?" asked Kim, fighting her fears.

Smiling back at her, Dr. Wong answered, "When you and Ann leave the building, you will walk through an area that will erase any recordable data on any kind of drive you are carrying. It's a security measure to make sure that no data can be smuggled out. I've been told it can even wipe a purchased DVD clean. This envelope with my signature on it will allow it to pass out of the building without having to go through that. I just have to give it to your escort and he'll return it to you once you have left the building. I still have to call our Internet Tech department to inform them that files have been copied from this terminal. They keep a close watch on that sort of thing now."

As she walked Kim to the door, Wanda turned to face her. "I really am sorry I couldn't help you with regards your father and I do hope that you can find some way to get him back with his family again. He's a good person."

"Thank you Wanda. I'm not sure yet how, but it _is_ going to happen," answered Kim knowing that Wanda had helped her more than she knew.

After she'd given the envelope to the guard along with explicit instructions on making sure that the data on the small drive did not get deleted or damaged, Dr. Wong went back to her desk and looked at her computer screen. There was another small information work box saying the same thing that the other one that she closed earlier said. "File Copying Complete." Smiling to herself, she closed this one too and called the IT department to inform them that multiple files had been copied from her computer with her authorization.

xxx

A lone man, desperate to distract his mind from all the mental pain and turmoil he was having, found an old radio where he was staying and turned it on. He'd run out of his pills the day before and he'd drank the last of the coffee that morning. Three months ago he thought he'd brought enough to last five. Wrong again he almost laughed/cried to himself. The only station he could find started playing a Johnny Cash song. One of his later ones. The lone man didn't want to listen to it, but he couldn't _'not' _listen to the words.

_I hurt myself today _

_To see if I still feel _

_I focus on the pain _

_The only thing that's real _

_The needle tears a hole_

_The old familiar sting _

_Try to kill it all away _

_But I remember everything _

_[Chorus:]_

_What have I become _

_My sweetest friend _

_Everyone I know goes away _

_In the end _

_And you could have it all _

_My empire of dirt _

_I will let you down _

_I will make you hurt _

_I wear this crown of thorns _

_Upon my liar's chair _

_Full of broken thoughts _

_I cannot repair _

_Beneath the stains of time _

_The feelings disappear _

_You are someone else _

_I am still right here _

_[Chorus:]_

_What have I become _

_My sweetest friend _

_Everyone I know goes away _

_In the end _

_And you could have it all _

_My empire of dirt _

_I will let you down _

_I will make you hurt _

_If I could start again _

_A million miles away _

_I would keep myself _

_I would find a way._

When it was over, he threw the radio on the floor and started smashing it as best he could, tears wanting to flow but couldn't. When there was nothing left of it, he fell to his hands and knee and a few managed to leak out, still beating the small bits and pieces with his hands till they started to bleed. When he tried to get himself back under control, he heard his daughter's voice say, "I told you that would be the only way left."

xxxxxxxxxxxx

The song sung by Johnny Cash is entitled "Hurt."

_TBC_

_As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, PM me or put it in a review._

_There is always room for improvement and nothing is written in stone. _


	12. Chapter 12

All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.

The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

xxx

A Special thanks to Temporaryinsanity91 for not only Beta reading this chapter, but for putting up with me.

Time to say thank you to the people that have left reviews for the previous chapter.

Temporaryinsanity91, UnknownDescent, Shinzochi, CajunBear73, ajw1970, Jimmy1201, Sentinel103, Beckman and Uberscribbler.

Several additional side stories have been added because of some reviews I've received, so never fear that I don't adjust it if you've made a good point. :)

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Previously

A lone man, desperate to distract his mind from all the mental pain and turmoil he was having, found an old radio where he was staying and turned it on. He'd run out of his pills the day before and he'd drank the last of the coffee that morning. Three months ago he thought he'd brought enough to last five. Wrong again he almost laughed/cried to himself. The only station he could find started playing a Johnny Cash song. One of his later ones. The lone man didn't want to listen to it, but he couldn't _'not' _listen to the words. When it was over, he threw the radio on the floor and started smashing it as best he could, tears wanting to flow but couldn't. When there was nothing left of it, he fell to his hands and knee and a few managed to leak out, still beating the small bits and pieces with his hands till they started to bleed. When he tried to get himself back under control, he heard his daughter's voice say, "I told you that would be the only way left."

xxxxxxxxxxxx

As they drove to their house to pick up her computer, Kim knew she really had to watch her speed now. Without thinking it through, she'd pulled her own mother that she had just reconnected with, into the same mess she was willing to risk herself to talk to her father. Her mother could be called an accessory since she didn't report it when she should have.

Just after she pulled up to the house, she turned to Ann to apologize for dragging her into it, but before she could, while looking at the house, Ann spoke quietly, sounding like her thoughts were a million miles away. "You know Kim, when you and Ron do decide to have children, I think you're going to want a bigger house with a yard for them to play in."

"We, uh—we weren't really thinking that far ahead when we bought it, Mom. It was just the first place we found when we... moved out of Middleton." Kim said the last part hesitantly, wondering where this was going.

Sighing, her mother looked out the window, still seeming like she was in a trance. "You know what one of the hardest things for me to learn as a mother was, Kim? Learning that sometimes you need to tell your child to 'hush' when she's getting ready to apologize for something that she doesn't need to. Something I wished I had thought of first, but I'm glad she did."

Kim's face broke into a relieved, gentle smile. "I'll be back in just a minute. I need to get my laptop and Ron's as well. He usually talk to his folks before they head to bed." As soon as Kim was headed towards the front door of the house, Ann clasped her hands to steady them. She hoped Kim hadn't noticed their trembling, which was getting worse.

Kim took a few more minutes than she planned, since she wanted to make sure that any phone calls to the house got forwarded to either her's or Ron's cell phones. Looking around the interior of the house as if for the first time, she saw that her mother was right. It had been only a place to escape to, away from Middleton and their problems there. It was too small to raise a family in when they decided to have...

She quickly ran upstairs to the bathroom to get one more thing that she hadn't needed for a while.

xxx

Ron greeted them at the door to the Possible home to tell them he'd made lunch for them, quickly explaining that he'd found the number for the grocery store that would deliver and had ordered some basics on his cell phone so he didn't tie up the house phone. Ann gave him a thanks and a quick kiss on the cheek. She winced a little as she still could see the slightly discolored area on his cheek in the shape of her hand, guilt making her stiffen as she stifled the trembling of her hands again as she shuffled up the stairs to James's study to check on something.

Kim gave him a different kind of kiss that didn't have anything to do with his cheeks, but it didn't last as long as he would have liked. She then divulged the success, or lack of it in one area and what she'd done to try to succeed in a different area so far as her father.

"After I locate where he's staying when he's not working, would you mind coming along on another mission, like old times? They may not have the same size ventilation ducts we were use to but I could sure stand to have my partner with me again, covering my backside when we break into the Center."

"What?" Ron's face was the picture of mischief as he pretended to be shocked at the offer. "Follow you through miles of close, cramped duct work with your beautiful butt the only thing I can see in front of me? Hmmmmmm." He tapped his chin as he pretended to deliberate, tilting his head to the side as he thought. "I'll have to think about it."

"Ron Stoppable!" said Kim with mock indignation as she put her hands on her hips, trying to look as stern as possible while trying not to smile. "Is that the only reason you went with me on all of those missions? Just to stare at my butt?"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh no." he answered before he broke into a big smile. "But it didn't hurt."

Her face now fully smiling, she pulled her husband into a hug as she whispered into is ear, "So long as it was _my_ butt then and not someone else's. I'll try to keep it in good enough shape that you don't start staring at any other woman's in the future."

He held her at arm's length, his eyes met hers mischievously. "Other women have butts? I never noticed. But then, I only ever paid attention to yours."

She slapped him lightly, laughing. "Liar," she chuckled. Then she gave him a quick kiss on the lips and grinned. "But thank you anyway for the compliment."

"No compliment. Just fact," he said as he gave her butt a quick rub. "You know I'd cover this backside any day, KP," he said with a wink. He smiled when she laughed again before getting back to business. "Now. Where do you want to set up to start digging through those file? I'll bring your lunch to you."

"Upstairs in dad's study. It still has the router for the house and I still need to forward those other files onto GJ," she said as she turned to start up the stairs.

"In that case," he said, smiling slyly again before bowing formally, "I'll be in a minute with your meal M'lady."

Kim giggled at his hideous fake British accent, watching his butt till he was out of sight. Smiling to herself, she realized how much she'd missed that. Being able to kid around and flirt like that with him. God, but it felt good to do that and not have all that worry. She still had some about her father, but even with the setbacks from the meeting with Dr. Wong, she hoped to get things cleared up soon.

When she got to the study and walked in, she saw her mother closing the safe they kept there. They'd had the same type in their old house and it withstood its destruction by the Lowardians so when they built the new house, they got another one just like it. It contained a lot of the family photo albums, some documents that went back to when their family came to this country and some very precious keep sakes.

"Something wrong mom?" she asked as Ann started to walk out. closing the safe that was kept there, a worried look on her face.

"Maybe Kim. I'm not sure." Ann answered.

"What's up?"

Ann looked at her daughter as she wondered if she told her what wasn't in the safe anymore would help or hinder Kim's efforts to find and talk to James. The problem was that Kim was reading her, as she'd been taught to do at Global Justice. Body language, where she was looking, breathing rate etc. All indicating that she wasn't saying something that could be important. Her hands shaking told her daughter something else too.

"Mom?" said Kim as she was starting to worry seeing the concern etched on her mother's face.

Ann finally made her decision and drew a deep breath. "The important thing right now is that we find out where your father is in the Center and we get in to talk to him. You find out where and how first and then we will _all_ talk about what we need to say and anything that might complicate it. Alright Kim?"

Kim just looked at her wanting to ask more, but before she could, Ron entered carrying a tray with two sandwiches, a bowl of soup and a glass of ice tea. "Here's your lunch KP," he said brightly, "I figured you'd want—" He stopped talking as he saw the two looking at each other in silence. They didn't look mad or anything. Just... silent. He frowned. "Did I interrupt something?"

After a moment of silence, Kim relaxed and gave him a small smile."No. We were just getting our priorities settled and in what order they _have_ to happen." She then watched her mother turn and leave the room, probably heading downstairs to get her lunch.

"Kim?" said Ron with a little worry tinting his voice.

Kim turned to him and after a couple of heartbeats, smiled much to his relief. "We're just tense and disappointed the way the meeting went." Then she added, "I need to call Betty and then get started on dad's file."

"Okay," he said placidly, quickly pecking her lips before turning to go.

"Oh, Ron," she quickly added. "I forgot. Your laptop is out in the van. I know it's about time for you to vid link your mom if you're going to talk to her today."

"Kim? You and your mom alright?"

"Yeah Ron. Now go talk to your mother. You've got a lot to tell her."

"Okay, okay. Just eat your lunch Dr. Kim, medicine woman. I know how you are when you get focused." She smiled back at him.

After Ron left, Kim activated her GJ Data-Base and spoke to Betty directly. She directed Kim to send the packet of files directly to her via her Data-Base, but to retain a copy of them and have a preliminary report with her conclusions about them on her desk first thing Monday morning, since they were still short handed.

After Kim sent the files, she then copied her father's over to her laptop and then started a program that Wade had given her. It was a Cross-referencing matrix program that would convert the files into a data matrix. It would then start pulling up similar information and correlate the into patterns, like when did her father take lunch, how much did he spend per lunch and what times he took them. The matrix also looks for a connection between patterns. The program can collate, but it can't think. It still takes a mind to take that information and use it. The program would look through her father's files still on her necklace drive while Kim took the longer route of going through the ones on her hardrive manually, looking at what she hoped were the most important first.

Once she started the program, the indicator showed it would take two hours to complete it's task.

xxx

Ann went downstairs and headed straight to the kitchen, not because she was hungry for anything to eat, but mostly to have something to do. When she got there, she saw that Ron must have gotten bored because it was spotless. He'd washed any dishes that they'd set in the sink after breakfast and put them away. He'd cleaned all the cabinets and counters and it even smelled freshly cleaned.

As she looked around for something he might have missed, she saw he'd done something else too. All the photos in the hall had been hung up back in there original spots. She looked at all of them and remembered happier times till she focused on one opposite the center of the doorway. It was a picture taken the summer before that day at Lake Middleton. It had Kim, Ron, Ann, the twins and Hanna. She reached out with shaking hands and took it down, laying it carefully on the kitchen table. James had taken the picture so he wasn't in it. She didn't want to be reminded that he was missing from her family right now.

"Mom. I'm going to call my folks and set up a webchat. It's almost eleven in Norway and I need to call now so I'll be in the living room if you want anything," Ron called from the dining room.

"All right Ron."

She stared at the picture again for a few minutes, wanting something to lessen the pain she was feeling over her husband not being there with them. After what Ron had told her earlier, she wondered if the monsters were back.

xxx

James had been having nightmares about Kim. They started about a year before her first day of pre-kindergarden.

Ann had a chance to assist one of the foremost brain surgeons in the country on a delicate operation at the hospital and it was a great opportunity to help advance her career. They tried to find a sitter for Kim, but her reputation had already been spread throughout the tri-city area, so James volunteered to take care of her, even though he had to go into the store to get some things for work. He'd also planned on getting something for her to celebrate her first step on becoming a top neurosurgeon.

To say that Kimmie had been a hand full that day would have been an understatement. More like three arm a leg full. Her grandfather would have probably said she was "wound up tighter than a two dollar pocket watch," whatever that meant. He just said it a lot of times.

After picking out a necklace that he want to buy, he had to put her down long enough to get out his checkbook, keeping an eye on her the whole time, warning her to stay put. He still had to look away long enough to fill out the check and sign it. That was all it took because when he turned around, she was gone. He looked everywhere. He got the store's security to help search for her since the surveillance cameras only covered the counters back then. Then they called the police to help search. It took them an hour to finally find her, all the while James was thinking the worst. She crawled behind a rack of long coats to first play hide and go seek with her father, but when he didn't find her, she got bored and fell asleep.

For the next three nights, he slept in their daughter's room in an overstuffed chair they kept there for reading bedtime stories. Every night she'd asked him why he was doing that and he answered, "To keep the monsters away." It wasn't till the third night that she figured out that it wasn't to keep the monsters away from Kim, it was to keep the monsters away from him. The ones that came for him that day in the store when he blamed himself.

It took her four more days to calm him down from that scare. It was probably during that time that the twins were conceived.

Ann checked to see if Ron had emptied the trash which he had. No chance to see if there was anything left in that bottle she'd thrown away last night. Slowly her sight shifted to the cabinet that she'd been able to close this morning. She thought that Kim would know if she'd open that bottle of gin and she might lose Kim's respect.

At that moment, it didn't matter.

xxx

'She'd had enough,' she finally decided after having gotten away from Middleton and them on the short vacation. It had been over a year and she'd watched her two children sink into their own private hell. So much that she almost dreaded talking with them, not that they wanted to talk about anything important, like what went wrong.

A year before they seemed so happy with their whole life in front of them, then as if someone had turned off a switch, gloom hung over them like building storm cloud that never rained. It had even affect his little sister Hanna. She'd become listless and quiet, barely playing anymore other than coloring picture with dark or colorless crayons. Lonnie had tried calling Kim's mother, who had been her best friend for the past twenty or so years, but she never answered and never returned any of her messages. When she asked her son what had happened, he mumbled something about it being personal and that they would deal with it, asking her and his father to not get involved. Something else had happen today that had made up her mind to deal with it, even if she risked ruining her relationship with her son and daughter-in-law.

Hanna wanted to play that day.

They all got up about the same time. Hana was somber and started crying right after breakfast for no reason. She couldn't explain why and it didn't last long. But by the time she and Donald had decided to take her to a doctor to make sure there wasn't anything physically wrong with her, all Hanna wanted to do was go outside and see the sights, meaning that she could run as fast as she could and see the scenery whiz past her. She ran circles around them as well as the town of Bergen where they were staying, laughing all the while. They had just gotten her settled in for the night when Lonnie realized that she was acting like her little girl use to before her brother's depression started. It was like a slap in the face how they had all gotten so lulled into being so depressed that they didn't notice it anymore. When, or if, Ron called for their webchat, his mother as going to give him a piece of her mind and some how, they were all going to get this mess straightened out, just as soon as she, her husband and daughter got home.

Lonnie Stoppable was so deep in her thoughts that she hadn't noticed that the web chat had been initiated and that her son had been watching her in silence for well over a minute. When she looked back to the monitor, there he was smiling at her as he said, "Hi mom. What's got my favorite mother so deep in thought?"

Lonnie looked at him and then started on what she'd been building up to say. "Ronnie, we need to …..." That was as far as she got before she noticed it.

Her son was _smiling_. Not the kind of smile she'd gotten use to, one that looked like he'd put it on just for the benefit of the person he was talking to because he thought it was expected. This was a _true_ smile like when he came home from his junior prom back in high school or the one he had after his Bar Mitzvah. Before she knew it, she had that same kind of smile appearing on her face too, which only made his own grow.

"Ronnie? What's happened, I mean what's going on? And what do you mean 'your favorite mother?' To the best of my knowledge, I'm your only mother."

"Actually mom, I have two. You might want to get dad up for this because I have a lot of explaining to do." he replied. It was an hour and many tears later when he'd finally gotten his parents caught up on what had happened, both that day, at the wedding and what they were trying to do to get James back with his wife. To his relief, the only time they interrupted his was to clarify something or ask a pertinent question. They never judged any of them. It wasn't till he was finished that his father asked him, "Son, why didn't you tell us about this sooner? We might have been able to help."

Ron wrung his hands, his silence heavy. After a moment, he looked away from the screen. "I know dad. It's just that...I was ashamed," he finally whispered. "I was ashamed of my part in everything. Of my actions that day. That and we didn't want you to run the risk of being drawn into it. We thought that they might accept you two later, even if they never did us."

"Ronald." said his father trying to draw him out of the funk they saw him start to settle in over his answer. "I just glad that you were all able to work things out son and I hope your talk with James works out just as well. I still find it hard to believe that he thought Ann was stronger than he was. Sometimes with married couples, the whole is more than the sum of their parts and they forget that."

"James sold himself a little short so far as their relationship is concerned I think," added his mom. Please tell Ann that if she needs anything or just wants to talk to an old friend, have her call me. I don't care what time it is, day or night, she is more than welcome to call. Well try and to catch the first plane home so we can be there for them as well as you and Kim."

He could only smile at his parents as they wrapped up the hour long talk that usually only lasted ten minutes. He shut down his laptop and went back up to check on Kim to see how she was doing.

xxx

When he quietly entered the room so he didn't disturb her, he found her sitting at her father's desk looking like she'd been crying. He was by her side in an instant, giving her what ever he could while trying to find out what was wrong. When she answered, she said, "I'm good at what I do. You know that."

"Kim you are _great _at what you do once you put your mind to it." Ron smiled a little, squeezing her hand. "Except for maybe cooking from scratch," he said with a wink.

She smiled and gave a small chuckle. She then turned serious again as she went on. "I've gone over hundreds of people's files but this is the first time I ever did it to someone I love. Going over these is like reading a lead up to an obituary of someone that died because he just gave up on living and then it stops making any kind of sense."

When he looked at her with a puzzled expression, she explained what she was understanding. " Look here, in his 'Personal Evaluations' folder. Other than his yearly evaluation which they are required to, daddy has only gotten awards and commendations for his work, but he's been written up over a dozen time from things ranging from personal hygiene to sleeping on the job and waking up screaming."

As Ron was remembering what he'd said to Ann before she and Kim left to go to the Center about not knowing how he was still able to work and that maybe he'd been closer to the mark than he wanted, Kim went on.

"They then moved up his yearly physical examination by the Center's resident physician. I haven't been able to locate his final report, but I found his notes. " Low white blood cell count. High blood pressure. Signs of acute insomnia and sleep deprivation." were the highlights. Do you know what sleep deprivation can do to a person?"

She then pulled up a separate page from a search engine to show him. Scanning it quickly he saw:

"_Common symptoms of sleep deprivation are hallucinations. A hallucination is the perception of something that is not really present in the environment, as opposed to an illusion, which is the misinterpretation of something that is present. For example, seeing a cat where there is nothing is a hallucination, but mistaking your coat rack for a person is an illusion."_

"_Sleep deprivation can actually cause other symptoms that mimic mental illness, such as disorientation and paranoid thoughts. In fact, one study found that 2% of 350 people who were sleep deprived for 112 hours experienced temporary conditions that were similar to acute paranoid schizophrenia."_

"_People with schizophrenia often have auditory hallucinations, hearing things that are not there."_

_-Sleep Deprived Coma-_

_The scientific name of the condition is called Fatal Familial Insomnia and it has the potential to put the sufferer into a deep coma that usually ends up resulting in death._

_- Severe Depression-_

_severe depression can emerge as a result of sleep deprivation. We're not talking about the mild depression we all face a couple times a week either. We're talking about a hard core, life ruining depression."_

"When he finished reading the page, Kim said, "And look at this note from the psychiatrist that saw him after that. _hearing voices and perceptual disturbances brought on by personal torment of an undisclosed source. He struggles with hallucinations and paranoid delusions brought on by his schizophrenia. They occasionally allow him to make connections that his conscious mind can't yet process. At other times, the hallucinations become James's greatest curse, leading him to behave in irrational, and potentially dangerous ways."_

Ron re-read the note several times before he could look at her. He gulped before saying, "Kim, I-I don't understand," he stuttered, aghast. "How is he still working and bringing in a paycheck? It sounds more like he should be getting help in a hospital."

"Ron!" she admonished him. "He's my dad and...Wait...What did you just say?"

"About the hospital?"

"No. The other thing."

"How is he still working and bringing in a paycheck?"

Her mind clicked onto something her mother said last night. "His paycheck, less one hundred dollars, is still being deposited into our joint account every two weeks." Of all the things that weren't making any sense to her, that statement was setting off a loud alarm.

"Please go downstairs and get daddy's bank statements they've been sending here and bring them up. I've got several other things to check but I want to take a look at those receipts. His financials weren't a part of his personal files," she said as she was already turning back to her laptop to explore a different set of files.

Ron rushed down to the dining room to retrieve the stack that he'd set aside and already sorted by dates while waiting for them to come home.

"Mom," he called to the kitchen. "Kim needs her dad's bank statements so I'm gonna borrow them for her, okay?" Technically they belonged to Ann and James so he just wanted to ask her permission before Kim opened them. Getting no reply he started toward the kitchen. "Mom?" he called down the hallway. "Mom, are you—?"

He cut off when he smelled an old familiar aroma just before he turned the corner to enter the kitchen. The smell of pine and juniper berries mixed with coffee.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

_TBC_

_Sorry but if I don't stop it here, this chapter will be longer than the previous one, and that one was the longest chapter I've ever written for any story._

_As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, PM me or put it in a review._

_There is always room for improvement and nothing is written in stone. _


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